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Florida is one of only nine states that deny voting rights to all ex-felons who have served their time, a non-profit group says.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2001
Once imprisoned in New York for selling crack, Thomas Johnson has dedicated the past four years to helping men get back into society after time in jail.
Yet when he wanted to register to vote in Gainesville last year, Johnson was dismayed to learn he couldn't. Florida, unlike New York, does not allow ex-felons to vote without permission from the governor and Cabinet.
Where, he wondered, was that promised second chance for him and others like him?
Able to vote in New York after serving his time, he saw no reason to seek clemency when he moved to Florida, where he had not committed a crime.
"It supersedes disenfranchisement. There should be a better word than that," said Johnson, 52, executive director of House of Hope of Alachua County. "If I'm going to be treated criminally in our society, where is true justice?"
Outraged and offended, Johnson and several other former felons sued the state in federal court in September, contending that the law violates the U.S. Constitution.
That lawsuit, paired with demands for election reform after Florida's chaotic 2000 presidential election, propelled the discussion about ex-felons' right to vote into a whole new realm.
Earlier this month, the Hernando and Pasco county commissions considered resolutions supporting the automatic restoration of ex-felons' voting rights. Neither acted, but commissioners acknowledged the issue must be heating up because it has reached them.
"Voting rights are important, especially after the last election," said Chris Kingsley, Hernando County Commission chairman.
Leon County Commissioner Bob Rackleff, a former speech writer for President Jimmy Carter, put the idea in play at the county level after learning about the lawsuit last fall.
"I always assumed that everybody did it," Rackleff said of restricting ex-felons' right to vote. "I didn't know Florida was in the minority."
Only nine states -- Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Wyoming -- deny the right to vote to all ex-offenders who have served their time, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that studies criminal justice policy. Florida is home to the largest number, more than 400,000, the group reports.
And, according to the lawsuit complaint, 20 percent of those ex-felons are African-American, compared with 15 percent of the general population.
Rackleff researched the suit, got his colleagues to support the plaintiffs and then called on other commissions to do the same.
"To me, it's just a matter of basic fairness. . . . Once you pay your price to society, you ought to be able to go back to a regular, normal life," he said. "It's one of those issues that is practically invisible to white, middle-class people like me."
One of the most prominent original plaintiffs -- St. Petersburg civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela -- was thrilled that new eyes are taking a look at this old issue. Perhaps added pressure from new fronts will provide the impetus for change, he said.
"I just think it became an issue of even greater significance with this last election, which many, myself included, in the black community feel utilized the strategy to negate the black voters as a factor," said Yeshitela, whose rights were restored nine days after the suit was filed and who is no longer a plaintiff.
"Whatever I can do to advance the rights of people to vote," he said, "I want to do that."
Yeshitela predicted the issue's heightened profile will hasten the move for change.
The American Civil Liberties Union increased the pressure Wednesday when it said it intended to sue the state on behalf of ex-felons seeking the right to vote. Its planned suit will center on the corrections department's failure to help departing inmates start the clemency application process, ACLU public education coordinator Alessandra Soler said.
The ACLU has scheduled a meeting in Miami later this month, at which lawyers will help ex-felons fill out clemency applications. If successful, the organization might have similar sessions in Tampa and other cities as it also seeks plaintiffs to join its possible class-action suit, Soler said.
The increased attention could help get the law changed, said state Rep. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale. Smith has filed two bills aimed to automatically restore ex-felons' voting rights one year after completing their sentences.
State Sen. Mandy Dawson, D-Fort Lauderdale, has filed a similar bill in the Senate.
"The bill has been filed almost every year," Smith acknowledged. "This is the one year that it has a chance to (be) heard."
Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning, a Democratic member of Gov. Jeb Bush's bipartisan task force on election reform, said the panel spent "quite a bit of time" on the topic when it first met and would not rule out a recommendation for change.
The question, said Jamie Fellner of New York-based Human Rights Watch, is whether Florida's GOP governor and Legislature will "do the right thing even if it is not going to benefit them as a partisan issue."
House and Senate majority leaders predicted tough times for the bills. Currently, ex-felons who meet specific standards, such as having no more than two felony convictions and no more than $1,000 in outstanding penalties, get an automatic review. Others can apply to the Clemency Board for their rights.
In 1999, about 1,900 people got rights restored through the automatic process. Another 224 were granted clemency after formal application and 32 were denied.
"Any felon can have their rights restored," said state Senate president pro tem Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville. "You just have to follow the process."
House Speaker Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, agreed.
"The speaker is very favorable of individuals having voting rights. He feels if they've paid their dues, they should be able to vote again," spokeswoman Kim Stone said. "He is just opposed to the mannerisms proposed by Rep. Smith."
Their views fall in line with more conservative think tanks such as the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Equal Opportunity.
"It seems to me that a presumption that felons should not be able to vote makes a lot of sense," said Roger Clegg, the center's general counsel. "People who are not willing to follow the law should not be allowed to make laws for everyone else, and that's what this boils down to."
If change must come, Clegg said, it should come in the form of better-defined voter qualifications. "Then let the chips fall as they may," he said. The state has filed a motion to dismiss the federal lawsuit, asserting that the ban on felons voting first appeared in Florida's 1838 constitution, before blacks had the right to vote.
"The simple truth is that there's not a single felon in Florida who is disenfranchised because he is African-American," Gov. Bush wrote in a letter to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. "Any person, black or white, who could not legally vote in the last election due to their status as a felon could have retained their right to vote by simply not committing a felony in the first place."
Bush has challenged the oft-repeated numbers generated by The Sentencing Project, claiming that the group ignored 156,325 felons who had their rights restored from 1964-1996 and overestimated the number of convicted felons in Florida by about 150,000. Whatever Florida does, the discussion will have national repercussions, said Marc Mauer, who wrote The Sentencing Project reports.
"The number in Florida is so significant that if Florida would scale back its provision . . . I think it would have a significant impact nationally," Mauer said. "Florida really is key to where this issue goes over the next couple of years."
Johnson was optimistic.
"I wouldn't do it just to waste time or just to kick up dust," he said of the lawsuit. "I'm doing it because I believe in the system. . . . We're looking at guys . . . who have made a mistake and now they are being branded forever. . . . This is ludicrous."
Florida is not the only state grappling with the issue of whether convicted felons or ex-felons may vote. Changes to some states' laws came during 2000. Here's a breakdown:
DELAWARE: The state General Assembly passed a constitutional amendment in June restoring voting rights to some ex-felons five years after they complete their sentences. Before, the state had a lifetime voting ban for felons.
PENNSYLVANIA: A Commonwealth Court restored the right to vote to thousands of ex-felons during 2000.
In addition to Florida, eight other states have lifetime voting bans for ex-felons. They are Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Wyoming. Another five states -- Arizona, Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee and Washington -- ban some ex-felons from voting.
- The Sentencing Project