Pubdate: Wed, 9 Mar 2011
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2011 Miami Herald Media Co.
Contact:  http://www.miamiherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262

WELCOME BACK, JIM CROW

Plan to Toughen Felons' Rights-Restoration Process Is Biased and Unfair

In record time, Florida's Cabinet brought us back to Jim Crow-era 
laws Wednesday. Unanimously, the Cabinet undid a judicious measure 
that had partially streamlined the voting-rights restoration process 
for tens of thousands of felons convicted of nonviolent crimes.

The all-Republican Cabinet -- Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam 
Bondi, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and Agriculture 
Commissioner Adam Putnam -- last month expressed support for Ms. 
Bondi's proposal to repeal the voting-rights reforms instituted for 
some felons in 2007. On Wednesday, at a rushed Cabinet meeting the 
group of four made it official.

Now that the Cabinet, which also serves as the Clemency Board, 
approved it, the state has returned to a cumbersome, mean-spirited, 
prejudiced rights-restoration system that created years-long backlogs 
in processing clemency applications. Reversing the reforms will 
undermine felons' rehabilitation.

It seems odd, in particular, that Gov. Scott supported this proposal. 
After all, he has emphasized the importance of rehabilitation to 
reduce prison costs. Making a nonviolent felon who wants to turn his 
life around jump through dozens of hoops and wait a long time to be 
eligible to vote again is not an incentive to straighten out one's life.

Under the 2007 rules, nonviolent felons had been eligible to get 
their rights restored without system-clogging applications and 
hearings if they completed their sentences and paid restitution if 
required. Violent criminals, sex offenders and others are still 
required to wait many years before their requests are even considered.

The streamlining gave clemency to thousands of felons, who regained 
their right to vote, serve on a jury and obtain some state 
occupational licenses without a long review and hearing process. 
There is no evidence that the 2007 reforms promoted crime in any way.

Now felons will have to wait five years after completing a sentence 
to apply for rights restoration. This will return Florida to the Jim 
Crow era, when such hurdles were created to prevent blacks from voting.

Make no mistake: This proposal has racial and partisan implications.

A disproportionate number of Florida's felons are African American, 
and in this state, blacks overwhelmingly vote Democratic. The Cabinet 
has further alienated black voters by adopting these more-stringent 
restoration rules. What purpose does that serve the state or the 
Republican Party?

In the last decade, more than 20 states have eased the restoration 
process for people convicted of crimes. Florida should remain in this 
group of enlightened states. Instead it has gone back a century. It 
now has joined only two other states -- Kentucky and Virginia -- in 
requiring waiting periods and hearings before felons can get their 
rights restored.

If anything, the Cabinet should have considered more streamlining 
measures for clemency. The Florida Parole Commission investigates 
clemency applications, and it has always struggled with huge 
backlogs. For a time the Corrections Department even loaned some 
staffers to tackle the backlog.

Clemency application reviews still move at a snail's pace, delaying 
justice for felons who have paid their debt to society. The 
Commission recently told the Legislature that it has a growing 
backlog of more than 100,000 cases.

Making felons who have served their time wait years to regain their 
rights has nothing to do with being tough on crime. By embracing this 
regressive proposal, the governor and Cabinet have sent Florida back 
to a shameful time of blatant racial prejudice.  
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake