The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on March 8 announced lobbying efforts during the General Assembly’s current session.

The ACLU is focusing on passing two measures and defeating two others.

The statewide group supports HB2452, which would reduce barriers to name changes, from victims of human trafficking to transgender people.

“The Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Foundation are among the partners supporting this bill,” the CBA said, “which promotes our longer-term goal of simplifying the legal process to make it more accessible for all Illinoisans.”

The ACLU also backs HB4262, which would reform language in juvenile-court and child-welfare laws to be inclusive.

“The Illinois Auditor General estimated that Illinois has hundreds of LGBTQ youth in care,” said ACLU Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs Khadine Bennett. “Adopting gender-inclusive language promotes equality and respect for all individuals.”

The civil-liberties group opposes trends to scale back privacy and criminal-justice reforms. “The Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act is currently under attack as a handful of large companies seek to undermine its protections to access and monetize the private information of Illinois residents,” Bennett said, and “there are efforts to roll back the reasoned approach to policing and criminal legal system reform advanced by the SAFE-T Act.”

The legislature is scheduled to be in session through April 8.