Pubdate: Sat, 29 Jun 2013
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2013 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93
Author: Jessica A. Johnson
Note: Jessica A. Johnson is an assistant professor of English 
composition at Central State University and writes for the Athens 
(Ga.) Banner-Herald.

NONVIOLENT OFFENDERS REGAINING THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN VIRGINIA

Toward the end of May, Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell took another 
momentous step in his valiant efforts to restore the right to vote 
for nonviolent felons in his state. Effective July 15, his 
administration will remove the two-year waiting period and the 
application process for nonviolent felons in good standing.

McDonnell, a Republican, has been praised by the NAACP and 
African-American leaders for his diligence in working to reinstate 
the franchise to those who have served their time. Although 
McDonnell's proposals have bipartisan support, they been harshly 
contested by some members of his own party. When he attempted to 
amend Virginia's constitution so voting rights could be restored 
immediately to nonviolent offenders after they've completed their 
sentences, it was rejected by Republicans in the House of Delegates.

Virginia, along with fellow southern states Florida, Alabama, 
Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, has more than 7 percent of its 
adult population disenfranchised due to felony convictions, according 
to The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates 
for criminal justice.

It is estimated that McDonnell's July 15 administrative process could 
restore voting rights to more than 100,000 Virginians, many of them 
African-Americans. This is significant, given that state 
disenfranchisement laws due to felonies have disproportionately 
affected blacks in the South.

Many of these laws were passed shortly after the Civil War and during 
Reconstruction. For example, my home state of Georgia passed its 
first felon disenfranchisement law in 1868, the same year the 14th 
Amendment was ratified. Voting restrictions based on felonies were 
tactics used by racist Southern lawmakers during this tense period to 
keep blacks from the ballot box. Other well known discriminatory 
voting barriers such as grandfather clauses, poll taxes and literacy 
tests would be implemented during the Jim Crow era to lock blacks out 
of the electorate for decades until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The uphill battle that McDonnell has been fighting to restore voting 
rights to nonviolent felons has its roots in the early 1980s, when 
mandatory-minimum sentencing laws were adopted during the War on 
Drugs. While the War on Drugs was launched as a get-tough policy on 
crime by the Nixon administration, the result has led to a surge of 
those who are guilty of drug offenses, many of them lowlevel, in the 
prison population.

Legal scholars have defined the prison boom as the age of mass 
incarceration, and this has hit African-American and other minority 
communities especially hard. African-Americans comprise more than 
half of Virginia's state inmates and close to 40 percent of people in 
the nation's federal or state prisons, so it is no surprise that 
felon-disenfranchisement laws have played a key role in suppressing 
their vote once they re-enter society.

McDonnell has taken a bold step in helping nonviolent offenders 
regain one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship. In 
speeches, he often has talked about redemption and second chances for 
those who have been punished. Second chances have been hard to come 
by for many ex-felons across the nation, as our country's laws are 
more severe in restricting their voting rights compared to other 
democracies. States have individual laws that make it extremely 
difficult for those released from prison to have their franchise 
restored, such as paying fines and court costs.

In her book The New Jim Crow, Ohio State University law professor 
Michelle Alexander calls the restoration process a "bureaucratic 
maze" that is "cumbersome, confusing and onerous." McDonnell is 
tackling that maze, and he is trying to eliminate as many obstacles 
as he can to reinstate voting rights on an individual basis during his term.

Since McDonnell's position has not been one that Republicans have 
championed on the national stage, his leadership on felon voting 
rights has made him stand out as a visionary in his party. McDonnell 
will continue to be lauded for his work, but what is most encouraging 
is that he is an elected official who has put the best interests of 
the people before politics.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom