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. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake