ACLU Shifts Gears in Campaign to Cut Jail Population

The American Civil Liberties Union is retooling an ambitious, donor-funded effort to reduce incarceration across the country, parting ways with the project’s director and shifting its emphasis from the ballot box to the courtroom, reports BuzzFeed News.

Alison Holcomb, who was tapped to head the Campaign for Smart Justice when it was launched in November 2014 with a $50 million gift from the Open Society Foundations, abruptly left the post in late June, as did her deputy, Jill Harris. The ACLU will also downplay an initial emphasis on ballot measures to enact reforms in favor of its more traditional tactics of lobbying and litigation.

Voter referenda will “not a centerpiece like we once thought,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said. “They are terribly expensive.” He noted that the more than $20 million the campaign has raised since the initial Open Society gift, including $15 million last year from wine retailer David Trone, came in the form of 501(c)(3) funds that generally cannot be used to influence elections.

Mr. Romero declined to discuss the reasons for the departure of Ms. Holcomb, an organizer of Washington State’s marijuana-legalization initiative in 2012, calling it a personnel matter, but he credited her for “exceptional leadership in getting something up and running.”