GOP National Voter Suppression (Interstate Crosscheck, ID, Poll Closures, Voter Patrols)
- Thread starter Julius Skrrvin
- Start date
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
t's been a year since the Supreme Court gutted the law, and racial justice remains elusive.
NORM ORNSTEINJUN 26 2014, 2:24 PM ET
Gary Cameron/Reuters
Fifty years ago last weekend, civil-rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan, including a deputy sheriff, in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Next Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the monumental achievements of the 20th century. Three weeks ago, on June 7, we had the 16th anniversary of the murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, after he was chained to a pickup truck by white supremacists and dragged three miles, mostly while conscious, with his headless body thrown in front of an African-American graveyard. And Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder, the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The story of the Civil Rights Act has been told vividly and wonderfully in two new books by journalists Todd Purdum (An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964) and Clay Risen (The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act). Purdum brought his book to life a week ago in a talk at the Aspen Institute, weaving the remarkable tale of the miraculous passage of the bill—miraculous not so much in the fact that a bill made it through the labyrinth of the legislative process (after all, we had seen a weak and watered-down civil-rights bill pass in 1957), but that it was a strong bill. Many heroes inside and outside government made it happen. Lyndon Johnson was a towering figure, as were Hubert Humphrey, Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, and others in the civil-rights movement. Joe Rauh and others in the liberal community were also key players, and labor and the faith community were vital as well.
How Racism Invented Race in America
But it is clear from both these books that there would not have been a meaningful Civil Rights Act, much less the Voting Rights Act in 1965, without the efforts of Republicans, especially Representative Bill McCullough of Ohio, Rep. Clarence Brown of Ohio, and senators including Tom Kuchel of California, Jacob Javits of New York, and especially Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican leader in the Senate. McCullough, Brown, and Dirksen were strong conservatives, deep believers in a small government that should leave business and free enterprise alone. There were many features of the Civil Rights Act that challenged those tenets. They also knew that supporting civil rights was unlikely to provide much political benefit. But these men believed that segregation was fundamentally immoral and needed to be undone. Their actions represent one of the great profiles in courage in American history.
In the list of anniversaries above, one seems a bit out of place. Why did I include James Byrd Jr? Because of Jasper, Texas, a small timber town in East Texas with a long history of brutality and racial discrimination that remains a touchstone today—and that is trying, after Shelby County, to alter its boundaries to disadvantage black voters.
Six years after James Byrd's murder, two white teenagers knocked over his headstone and wrote racial slurs on it. White-supremacist groups advertised online to sell dirt from his grave and links from the chain that dragged him to his decapitation and death. The cemetery where he is buried used to have an iron fence separating the black and white graves; it was removed after Byrd's death, but there is still no mingling of races among the grave sites. A cemetery director explained to New York Times reporter Manny Fernandez in June 2012: "Put a black here? No, no, we wouldn't do that. That would be against our custom, against our way of doing things."
Jasper is fairly evenly divided between black and white populations. It has five City Council members, four elected in districts and one at large. In 2011, there were four African-American members of the Jasper City Council, and one white member. They voted unanimously to select Rodney Pearson to be the first African-American police chief, presumably trying to alleviate the tensions that had existed between the largely white police force and the black community.
A timeline developed by the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C. (I am on the board) tells the following story: The only radio station in Jasper, owned by the mayor, Mike Lout, began a campaign of vilification against Pearson, on air and on its website. A group of white citizens calling themselves the League of Concerned Citizens organized to recall only the black City Council members in order to fire Pearson. The radio station posted information about the league and how citizens could sign recall petitions. Only whites signed the petitions. Although the city precincts included a polling place at a black church, the city instead used Jasper County polling places, none of which were located in the black community. Leading up to the recall, KJAS broadcast warnings that citizens with outstanding fines or tickets could be subject to arrest if they showed up to vote.
In November 2011, two black councilmembers were recalled. Immediately after new, white councilmembers were in place, they fired Pearson. He sued the city, and in February of this year, the city paid him $800,000 to settle the claim. Two other co-defendants paid him an additional $31,000. Lout has denied that the firing was related to Pearson's race, and the city's attorneys said thesettlement was not an admission of guilt.
owes his primary victory in Mississippi to African-American voters there, repays their support by becoming a sponsor of the VRA revision.
We are not expecting much from the final months of the 113th Congress. But there is time for Cantor, McCarthy, and their colleagues to replicate what McCullough, Dirksen, and others did 50 years ago. Jasper, Texas; Augusta, Georgia; the state of North Carolina; and many other places demonstrate why—contrary to Roberts's opinion—that action is necessary.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/why-the-voting-rights-act-still-matters/373541/
NORM ORNSTEINJUN 26 2014, 2:24 PM ET
Gary Cameron/Reuters
Fifty years ago last weekend, civil-rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan, including a deputy sheriff, in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Next Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the monumental achievements of the 20th century. Three weeks ago, on June 7, we had the 16th anniversary of the murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, after he was chained to a pickup truck by white supremacists and dragged three miles, mostly while conscious, with his headless body thrown in front of an African-American graveyard. And Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder, the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The story of the Civil Rights Act has been told vividly and wonderfully in two new books by journalists Todd Purdum (An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964) and Clay Risen (The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act). Purdum brought his book to life a week ago in a talk at the Aspen Institute, weaving the remarkable tale of the miraculous passage of the bill—miraculous not so much in the fact that a bill made it through the labyrinth of the legislative process (after all, we had seen a weak and watered-down civil-rights bill pass in 1957), but that it was a strong bill. Many heroes inside and outside government made it happen. Lyndon Johnson was a towering figure, as were Hubert Humphrey, Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, and others in the civil-rights movement. Joe Rauh and others in the liberal community were also key players, and labor and the faith community were vital as well.
How Racism Invented Race in America
But it is clear from both these books that there would not have been a meaningful Civil Rights Act, much less the Voting Rights Act in 1965, without the efforts of Republicans, especially Representative Bill McCullough of Ohio, Rep. Clarence Brown of Ohio, and senators including Tom Kuchel of California, Jacob Javits of New York, and especially Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican leader in the Senate. McCullough, Brown, and Dirksen were strong conservatives, deep believers in a small government that should leave business and free enterprise alone. There were many features of the Civil Rights Act that challenged those tenets. They also knew that supporting civil rights was unlikely to provide much political benefit. But these men believed that segregation was fundamentally immoral and needed to be undone. Their actions represent one of the great profiles in courage in American history.
In the list of anniversaries above, one seems a bit out of place. Why did I include James Byrd Jr? Because of Jasper, Texas, a small timber town in East Texas with a long history of brutality and racial discrimination that remains a touchstone today—and that is trying, after Shelby County, to alter its boundaries to disadvantage black voters.
Six years after James Byrd's murder, two white teenagers knocked over his headstone and wrote racial slurs on it. White-supremacist groups advertised online to sell dirt from his grave and links from the chain that dragged him to his decapitation and death. The cemetery where he is buried used to have an iron fence separating the black and white graves; it was removed after Byrd's death, but there is still no mingling of races among the grave sites. A cemetery director explained to New York Times reporter Manny Fernandez in June 2012: "Put a black here? No, no, we wouldn't do that. That would be against our custom, against our way of doing things."
Jasper is fairly evenly divided between black and white populations. It has five City Council members, four elected in districts and one at large. In 2011, there were four African-American members of the Jasper City Council, and one white member. They voted unanimously to select Rodney Pearson to be the first African-American police chief, presumably trying to alleviate the tensions that had existed between the largely white police force and the black community.
A timeline developed by the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C. (I am on the board) tells the following story: The only radio station in Jasper, owned by the mayor, Mike Lout, began a campaign of vilification against Pearson, on air and on its website. A group of white citizens calling themselves the League of Concerned Citizens organized to recall only the black City Council members in order to fire Pearson. The radio station posted information about the league and how citizens could sign recall petitions. Only whites signed the petitions. Although the city precincts included a polling place at a black church, the city instead used Jasper County polling places, none of which were located in the black community. Leading up to the recall, KJAS broadcast warnings that citizens with outstanding fines or tickets could be subject to arrest if they showed up to vote.
In November 2011, two black councilmembers were recalled. Immediately after new, white councilmembers were in place, they fired Pearson. He sued the city, and in February of this year, the city paid him $800,000 to settle the claim. Two other co-defendants paid him an additional $31,000. Lout has denied that the firing was related to Pearson's race, and the city's attorneys said thesettlement was not an admission of guilt.
owes his primary victory in Mississippi to African-American voters there, repays their support by becoming a sponsor of the VRA revision.
We are not expecting much from the final months of the 113th Congress. But there is time for Cantor, McCarthy, and their colleagues to replicate what McCullough, Dirksen, and others did 50 years ago. Jasper, Texas; Augusta, Georgia; the state of North Carolina; and many other places demonstrate why—contrary to Roberts's opinion—that action is necessary.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/why-the-voting-rights-act-still-matters/373541/
kermit da hustla
Banned
blacks need to stop waiting on white people to give them rights. stand up for your own dignity and demand those rights.
Rand Paul Explains His Family’s Opposition To Civil Rights Act: ‘It’s About Controlling Property’
By Ian Millhiser
January 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm Updated: January 9, 2012 at 11:37 am
In 2004, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) voted against a resolution praising the 1964 law banning whites-only lunch counters and employment discrimination because he claimed that “the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.” Ron Paul’s views were recently echoed by his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who claimed that opposing the ban on whites-only lunch counters is the “hard part about believing in freedom.”
In an interview this morning on CNN, the younger Paul was asked to defend his father’s disregard for one of the most important legislative accomplishments in American history. His answer? Allowing private businesses to maintain a culture of virulent racism is the price we must pay in order to have cigar bars:
RAND PAUL: There are things that people were concerned about that were unintended consequences [of the Civil Rights Act], for example, people who believe very fervently in people having equal protection under the law, and are against segregation and all that, still worried about the loss of property rights…for example, I can’t have a cigar bar any more, and you say, “well, that has nothing to do with race” — the idea of whether or not you control your property, it also tells you, come in here I want to know the calorie count on that, and the calorie Nazis come in here and tell me. [...] The point is that its not all about that. It’s not all about race relations, it’s about controlling property, ultimately.
Watch it:
Later in the same interview, Paul attacks the interviewers for “dwelling on an obscure issue” by questioning his father’s opposition to desegregation. Simply put, there are not very many victims of the apartheid state that the Civil Rights Act helped end who would describe desegregation as an “obscure issue.”
By Ian Millhiser
January 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm Updated: January 9, 2012 at 11:37 am
In 2004, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) voted against a resolution praising the 1964 law banning whites-only lunch counters and employment discrimination because he claimed that “the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.” Ron Paul’s views were recently echoed by his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who claimed that opposing the ban on whites-only lunch counters is the “hard part about believing in freedom.”
In an interview this morning on CNN, the younger Paul was asked to defend his father’s disregard for one of the most important legislative accomplishments in American history. His answer? Allowing private businesses to maintain a culture of virulent racism is the price we must pay in order to have cigar bars:
RAND PAUL: There are things that people were concerned about that were unintended consequences [of the Civil Rights Act], for example, people who believe very fervently in people having equal protection under the law, and are against segregation and all that, still worried about the loss of property rights…for example, I can’t have a cigar bar any more, and you say, “well, that has nothing to do with race” — the idea of whether or not you control your property, it also tells you, come in here I want to know the calorie count on that, and the calorie Nazis come in here and tell me. [...] The point is that its not all about that. It’s not all about race relations, it’s about controlling property, ultimately.
Watch it:
Later in the same interview, Paul attacks the interviewers for “dwelling on an obscure issue” by questioning his father’s opposition to desegregation. Simply put, there are not very many victims of the apartheid state that the Civil Rights Act helped end who would describe desegregation as an “obscure issue.”
Richard Wright
Living Legend
Rand Paul Explains His Family’s Opposition To Civil Rights Act: ‘It’s About Controlling Property’
By Ian Millhiser
In 2004, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) voted against a resolution praising the 1964 law banning whites-only lunch counters and employment discrimination because he claimed that “the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.” Ron Paul’s views were recently echoed by his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who claimed that opposing the ban on whites-only lunch counters is the “hard part about believing in freedom.”
In an interview this morning on CNN, the younger Paul was asked to defend his father’s disregard for one of the most important legislative accomplishments in American history. His answer? Allowing private businesses to maintain a culture of virulent racism is the price we must pay in order to have cigar bars:
RAND PAUL: There are things that people were concerned about that were unintended consequences [of the Civil Rights Act], for example, people who believe very fervently in people having equal protection under the law, and are against segregation and all that, still worried about the loss of property rights…for example, I can’t have a cigar bar any more, and you say, “well, that has nothing to do with race” — the idea of whether or not you control your property, it also tells you, come in here I want to know the calorie count on that, and the calorie Nazis come in here and tell me. [...] The point is that its not all about that. It’s not all about race relations, it’s about controlling property, ultimately.
Watch it:
Later in the same interview, Paul attacks the interviewers for “dwelling on an obscure issue” by questioning his father’s opposition to desegregation. Simply put, there are not very many victims of the apartheid state that the Civil Rights Act helped end who would describe desegregation as an “obscure issue.”
What did Rand say that was wrong?
Because he's being purposefully obtuse.
Richard Wright
Living Legend
Why should we as americans be content with legislation that is simply symbollic? I want to live in a better world, not a world that superficially makes people feel good.
Politicians want power - to take freedom away. Rand wants to fight against that.
Its not his fault that most of his supporters are idiots.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I am talking about his insinuation that the opposition to desegregation substantially about controlling property rights versus maintaining a status quo of subjugation. Even if that were the case, when we balance the utter subjugation and marginalization of one race vs. a minor inconvenience to a store owner of not being able to allow someone entry just based upon their skin color, it is a ridiculous stance to take. Rand Paul's problem is that his ideas of personal freedom and liberty cannot just exist in a theoretical realm. They have to be applied to the world that we live in and the society that we live in. If you apply his ideas to drug policy, it works, and it makes sense. If you apply it to race relations and poverty, you're going to be left with a lot of gaps in outcomes that he is unable to compensate for.
Richard Wright
Living Legend
The issue with people like rand's way of thinking is that they think they can restore freedom to the market. Free markets would have worked for black people, but they were never allowed to exist.
Once a market is not free for any time period it will never be free again.
Upped:
On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote. The bill made it illegal to impose restrictions on federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to blacks.
On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote. The bill made it illegal to impose restrictions on federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to blacks.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
The Voting Rights Act is a historic civil rights law that is meant to ensure that the right to vote is not denied on account of race or color.
Unless Congress acts quickly, this could be the first election in 50 years without full protection of the right to vote for minority voters. We need Congress to act fast – to pass the Voting Rights Amendment Act and protect the right to vote for all people.
53Days18Hours30Minutes49Seconds
until the next election
Will your vote be fully protected?
1867
1866 Civil Rights Act of 1866 grants citizenship, but not the right to vote, to all native-born Americans.
1896
Louisiana passes "grandfather clauses" to keep former slaves and their descendants from voting. As a result, registered black voters drops from 44.8%...
1964
Poll taxes are outlawed with the adoption of the 24th Amendment.
1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, permanently barring barriers to political participation by racial and ethnic minorities, prohibiting any election practice that denies the right to vote on account of race... (Video)
1970
President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.
Nixon: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has opened participation in the political process."
1975
President Gerald Ford signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.
1990
Due, in part, to the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the number of black elected officials in Georgia grows to 495 in 1990 from just three prior to the VRA.
2010 to Present
Since 2010 alone, the Department of Justice has had 18 Section 5 objections to voting laws in Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana. (video)
2011
Restrictions to voting passed in South Carolina, Texas and Florida are found to disproportionately impact minority voters. (Video)
2011
Texas passed one of the nation's most restrictive voter ID laws. Under the VRA, the state was required to submit the law to DOJ or... (more)
2011
South Carolina passed a restrictive voter ID law that would keep more than 180,000 African Americans from casting a ballot. (more)
2014
In January 2014, a bipartisan group of legislators in Congress took the first step toward developing a new formula and modernizing the Voting Rights Act. (more)
1869
Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment giving African American men the right to vote.
1940
Only 3% of eligible African Americans in the South are registered to vote.
Jim Crow laws like literacy tests and poll taxes were meant to keep African Americans from voting.
1965
More than 500 non-violent civil rights marchers are attacked by law enforcement officers while attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand the need for African American voting rights.
1965
By the end of 1965, 250,000 new black voters are registered, one third of them by federal examiners.
1972
Barbara Jordan of Houston and Andrew Young of Atlanta become the first African Americans elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction. (Video)
1982
President Ronald Reagan signed a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act.
2006
Congress extended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years.
2011
A record number of restrictions to voting were introduced in state legislatures nationwide, including photo ID requirements... (more)
2011
Florida passed a law that restricts voter registration and made cuts to early voting. The majority of African Americans in Florida... (more)
2011
Under the VRA, the DOJ blocked South Carolina's voter ID law, saying it discriminates against minority voters... (more)
2013
2013 Shelby v. Holder at the Supreme Court. (more)
https://www.aclu.org/timeline-history-voting-rights-act
interactive in link
Unless Congress acts quickly, this could be the first election in 50 years without full protection of the right to vote for minority voters. We need Congress to act fast – to pass the Voting Rights Amendment Act and protect the right to vote for all people.
53Days18Hours30Minutes49Seconds
until the next election
Will your vote be fully protected?
1867
1866 Civil Rights Act of 1866 grants citizenship, but not the right to vote, to all native-born Americans.
1896
Louisiana passes "grandfather clauses" to keep former slaves and their descendants from voting. As a result, registered black voters drops from 44.8%...
1964
Poll taxes are outlawed with the adoption of the 24th Amendment.
1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, permanently barring barriers to political participation by racial and ethnic minorities, prohibiting any election practice that denies the right to vote on account of race... (Video)
1970
President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.
Nixon: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has opened participation in the political process."
1975
President Gerald Ford signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.
1990
Due, in part, to the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the number of black elected officials in Georgia grows to 495 in 1990 from just three prior to the VRA.
2010 to Present
Since 2010 alone, the Department of Justice has had 18 Section 5 objections to voting laws in Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana. (video)
2011
Restrictions to voting passed in South Carolina, Texas and Florida are found to disproportionately impact minority voters. (Video)
2011
Texas passed one of the nation's most restrictive voter ID laws. Under the VRA, the state was required to submit the law to DOJ or... (more)
2011
South Carolina passed a restrictive voter ID law that would keep more than 180,000 African Americans from casting a ballot. (more)
2014
In January 2014, a bipartisan group of legislators in Congress took the first step toward developing a new formula and modernizing the Voting Rights Act. (more)
1869
Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment giving African American men the right to vote.
1940
Only 3% of eligible African Americans in the South are registered to vote.
Jim Crow laws like literacy tests and poll taxes were meant to keep African Americans from voting.
1965
More than 500 non-violent civil rights marchers are attacked by law enforcement officers while attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand the need for African American voting rights.
1965
By the end of 1965, 250,000 new black voters are registered, one third of them by federal examiners.
1972
Barbara Jordan of Houston and Andrew Young of Atlanta become the first African Americans elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction. (Video)
1982
President Ronald Reagan signed a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act.
2006
Congress extended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years.
2011
A record number of restrictions to voting were introduced in state legislatures nationwide, including photo ID requirements... (more)
2011
Florida passed a law that restricts voter registration and made cuts to early voting. The majority of African Americans in Florida... (more)
2011
Under the VRA, the DOJ blocked South Carolina's voter ID law, saying it discriminates against minority voters... (more)
2013
2013 Shelby v. Holder at the Supreme Court. (more)
https://www.aclu.org/timeline-history-voting-rights-act
interactive in link
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Kentucky Restores Voting Rights to 140,000 Nonviolent Felons
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear at the Fancy Farm picnic (!) in Fancy Farm, Kentucky on Aug. 2, 2014.
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Outgoing Democratic Kentucky governor Steve Beshear has restored voting rights to an estimated 140,000 nonviolent felons who have served their sentences, joining a number of states that have eliminated convict voting restrictions in recent years. (The move is expected to effect another 30,000 individuals over time.) Beshear's move was accomplished via executive order—the Kentucky governor has always had the authority to restore ex-convicts' rights with pardons—but he has also encouraged the state legislature to pass a constitutional amendment to make the reforms permanent.
"The House has repeatedly advanced measures that would automatically restore rights to some felons after their sentence is complete," the Louisville Courier-Journalwrites of the issue. "But the proposal has faced opposition in the Senate, where critics have pushed for a waiting period and want to reduce the types of felons who would be eligible."
Incoming Republican governor Matt Bevin has not commented on the merits of Beshear's order but has said in the past that he supports the restoration of some voting rights for former convicts. (The issue, like a number of other criminal justice reforms, is one on which many U.S. politicians of varying partisan and ideological perspectives have found common ground.)
Kentucky Restores Voting Rights to 140,000 Nonviolent Felons
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear at the Fancy Farm picnic (!) in Fancy Farm, Kentucky on Aug. 2, 2014.
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Outgoing Democratic Kentucky governor Steve Beshear has restored voting rights to an estimated 140,000 nonviolent felons who have served their sentences, joining a number of states that have eliminated convict voting restrictions in recent years. (The move is expected to effect another 30,000 individuals over time.) Beshear's move was accomplished via executive order—the Kentucky governor has always had the authority to restore ex-convicts' rights with pardons—but he has also encouraged the state legislature to pass a constitutional amendment to make the reforms permanent.
"The House has repeatedly advanced measures that would automatically restore rights to some felons after their sentence is complete," the Louisville Courier-Journalwrites of the issue. "But the proposal has faced opposition in the Senate, where critics have pushed for a waiting period and want to reduce the types of felons who would be eligible."
Incoming Republican governor Matt Bevin has not commented on the merits of Beshear's order but has said in the past that he supports the restoration of some voting rights for former convicts. (The issue, like a number of other criminal justice reforms, is one on which many U.S. politicians of varying partisan and ideological perspectives have found common ground.)
Kentucky Restores Voting Rights to 140,000 Nonviolent Felons
