Voting Rights of Florida Felons Scrutinized After 2000 Election

[kskiska]

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Jeb Bush looked out over a roomful of felons appealing to him for something they had lost, and tried to reassure them.
"Don't be nervous; we're not mean people," the governor said as some fidgeted, prayed, hushed children or polished their handwritten statements. "You can just speak from the heart."

And they did: convicted robbers, drunken drivers, drug traffickers and others, all finished with their sentences, standing up one by one in a basement room at the State Capitol and asking Mr. Bush to restore their civil rights. Their files before him, Mr. Bush asked one man about his drinking, another about his temper, and so on.

Four mornings a year, this unusual scene unfolds in front of the governor and his cabinet, as they review the requests of some of the thousands of felons whom Florida has stripped of their rights to vote, serve on a jury and hold public office.

Since daybreak on Nov. 8, 2000, when the nation awoke to the shock of a presidential race ending in a virtual tie, Florida's voting laws and practices have been the subject of intense debate and scrutiny. The disputed election results led the state to adopt sweeping changes in how votes are cast and counted and how voter rolls are maintained.

Yet as Florida becomes an election-year battleground again, with Governor Bush vowing to ensure victory here for his brother and Democrats eager to reclaim the state, its electoral practices — including its felon disenfranchisement law — are drawing renewed attention.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/politics/campaign/28FELO.html?hp

[Ladyhawk]

1. I thought the problem was he disenfranchised people

whose names or birthdates were similar/the same as convicted felons.

[yltlatl]

2. Why can't people see this for what it is?

a sneaky Jim Crow law.

"In Florida, 31 percent of adult black males cannot vote as a result of felony disenfranchisement, almost three times greater than percentage of black males disenfranchised nationwide."

http://archive.aclu.org/news/2001/n031401b.html

[Snazzy]

3. Page one NYT story

KICKOLA.

This needs attention folks.

Felon disenfranchisement is the Cruella move.

[Lexingtonian]

4. And this is why we need a Democratic governor for Florida....

Much as there are lots of other things to disagree about across the 'cultural' divide (guns, God, etc) this is one of the two biggies on the social justice front for the next three or four years. (Gay marriage is the other.)

Florida is one of six or seven states with universal ex-felon disenfranchisement. It really is the most important in numbers and political weight, has entrenched the matter into a state constitutional amendment, and is so dominated by Republicans that it most vehemently resists change. If/when Florida changes the other states will follow rapidly.

Prior to the 2000 elections the first real lawsuit got filed to strike down the Florida amendment. Johnson v. Bush got badly mangled by a seemingly biased federal judge in Florida- he dismissed a lot of evidence, prevented or allowed stalling of discovery, disqualified expert witnesses for scurrilous reasons, etc. The 11th District Court of Appeals overturned his dismissal of the case pretty brutally three months ago. My impression is that the plaintiffs are seeing too much obstructionism from the federal courts to be in a hurry to run this through- and it will get appealed to the Supreme Court. It's very much a 14th Amendment case but the Scalia-Rehnquist Five have demonstrated how perversely they can misinterpret it at will and whim....

A second lawsuit got settled this summer, known as FCBSL v. Crosby alleging that the Florida Department of Corrections (or Prisons) neglected its official duty to help ex-felons begin the petitioning process to get a pardon for the disenfranchisement portion of their punishment (as it is seen legally). According to the terms of the settlement Jeb Bush will get ~60,000 petitions (representing ~10% of ex-felons) submitted by this summer- but I don't think the plaintiffs got very firm promises about what criteria will be used. I've heard nothing and imagine they're going to end up screwed for the 2004 elections.

But getting a Democratic Governor with some careful courage and discretion to pardon large, reasonable, subsets of the ex-felons seems to be the key step. More or less blanket pardonings reenfranchising those out for 5 years and sentenced for nonviolent offenses is pretty defensible and probably restores the rights of at least half (which is still ~ 300,000 people). Two or three years later the same could happen for minor violent offenders. In the meantime the lawsuits would work their way through the courts.

I'm hopeful that after 2006 the reactionaries will be on the run everywhere in the country, there isn't much point in pressing things much farther before then as long as Republican judges feel the wind is still blowing their way, biaswise, within the system.

[toopers]

5. Why are we so interested in letting convicted felons vote?

I guess I don't fully understand this issue.

[TahitiNut]

6. Canaries in a coal mine.

Or police state here we come.

[On the Road]

7. It's a Class Issue and a Race issue

Felons are disporportionately from lower classes and disporportionately black. This is the reason for the law, of course -- it IS an indirect Jim Crow law.

Permanently barring someone from voting after serving a sentence is a really questionable policy. It's a limited type of life sentence for a very wide range of crimes.

[sweetheart]

8. Universal sufferage is a human right

and it is severely embarassing for the US to be one of the last
countries in the democratic world to not uphold this right. The
race bias stinks of institutional racism, horribly, and as well,
with drugs, for example, the crime itself is political and the law
created to disenfranchise liberal voters.

Its a sham and should be overturned by the supreme court, as it
undermines the constitution.

[Ravy]

9. They can in most states.. they have their rights reinstated after

they have served their time. So, you are in Kansas, have served your time, you can vote in a NATIONAL election. You are in Florida and served your time, you can't.

And, that's not all. GET THIS... if you have had your rights reinstated by the state that you did time for and move to Florida, they STILL WON'T RECOGNIZE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE.

So, besides all the monkeying around with non-felons that share the same last name and birthday of a convicted felon not being able to vote, put that aside. This is a different question.

If you have served your time, why not have your voting rights reinstated as they are in other states?