This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:
The Saturday Night Card Game now is being held in luxurious, highly posh surroundings, but nothing has changed. The Game remains the same.
Tonight we will examine the controversy in Florida regarding plans to impose a 5-year waiting period before ex-felons can vote. Ex-felon voting rights had been restored in 2007, but the new Republican Governor and Attorney General moved swiftly to reinstate a 5-year ban:
The 2007 rule change spurred more than 100,000 ex-felons to earn the ability to register to vote ahead of the 2008 election in which then-candidate Barack Obama swept Florida. Experts say many of those new voters were likely Democratic-leaning African Americans.
The new rule, drafted by Attorney General Pam Bondi, had not been released publicly until just moments before Wednesday’s meeting of the state’s executive clemency board, which consists of Scott, Bondi and two other statewide elected officials – all of them Republican.
The ex-felon restrictions take place against the backdrop of charges that voter i.d. laws in Florida are part of an attempt, according to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to return to Jim Crow laws.
And sure enough, the changes for ex-felons has brought explicit charges of racism as evidenced in this piece at The Daily Beast, Florida’s Racist New Law (emphasis mine):
But whether the move was simply tough-on-crime posturing or something more nefarious remains an open question. Howard Simon of the Florida ACLU recalls the hotly contested 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush carried the state by the slimmest of margins and was declared the victor only after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. He suggests that the new law might have been designed to deny voting rights to as many people as possible before the 2012 presidential election. “The unseemly haste and lack of transparency suggests clearly that this was politics disguised as public policy,” Simon said….
“It’s really not about what’s right or fair,” said Ken Lumpkin, an attorney and political activist in Cleveland. “This is about stealing elections and hurting an individual’s chances of starting over after prison. If felons had had the franchise in Florida back in 2000, over a million more people would have been eligible to vote, and the election would not have been close enough for the Supreme Court to give it to Bush. What this new governor is doing is rolling back the clock on minority rights. And with Republican governors and legislative majorities in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, no one should be surprised if they try to change the rules in those states also. If that happens, a Democratic candidate for president won’t stand a chance.”
As to the public policy, it doesn’t seem that a 5-year waiting period is unduly harsh or restrictive. And as to the charge of racism, even if non-whites were a higher percentage of the ex-felon population than of the general population, that would not be racist; white ex-felons similarly are barred.
But more important, notice the implicit assumption that ex-felons would be likely to vote for Democrats. I’d like to take issue with that, but I’m not sure I could.
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Democrats are playing race games because they are considering only black felons. Their argument is fact this: The percentage of black men behind bars is much greater than the percentage of blacks in America. Blacks in America tend to vote Democrat, and mindlessly so. Therefore, Democrats stand to gain the most from felons being allowed to vote.
Republicans are looking at the rate of recidivism and betting that, within the five years of the ban, many of the ex-felons will have strayed from the straight and narrow and wound up behind bars. Consequently, many of the ex-felons will be ineligible to vote. Thus, they are betting that Democrats will be the losers.
Democrats don’t care about actual racism. They care about leveling the charge as a political tool. Therefore, if there is one person of color impacted by the law, whether or not there is any racism involved, Democrats will claim there is, and Republicans will shudder in fear from being tarred with that brush and retreat.
Republicans need to grow balls.
If the GOP folds again, bad cess to ’em.
Democrats are playing race games because they are considering only black felons. Their argument is fact this: The percentage of black men behind bars is much greater than the percentage of blacks in America. Blacks in America tend to vote Democrat, and mindlessly so. Therefore, Democrats stand to gain the most from felons being allowed to vote.
Republicans are looking at the rate of recidivism and betting that, within the five years of the ban, many of the ex-felons will have strayed from the straight and narrow and wound up behind bars. Consequently, many of the ex-felons will be ineligible to vote. Thus, they are betting that Democrats will be the losers.
Democrats don’t care about actual racism. They care about leveling the charge as a political tool. Therefore, if there is one person of color impacted by the law, whether or not there is any racism involved, Democrats will claim there is, and Republicans will shudder in fear from being tarred with that brush and retreat.
Republicans need to grow balls. If the GOP folds again, bad cess to ’em.
Why do they presume ex-felons will vote for Democrats?
Because its the most natural of democrat constituencies. Bleeding hearts,”The Man” is out to get you, everything is someone else’s fault, life is unfair, some people have too much so we should take it, its somebody else’s fault, police are mean and the law is racist, its someone else’s fault, etc–the two are a match made in heaven (or, rather, whatever Marx believed in).
The real question is: Why wouldn’t an ex-con vote democrat?
What I hate is when Repubs stupidly score an “own goal.” See, ‘VIDEO: Actor Reggie Brown, Obama Impersonator, Pulled From Stage at Republican Leadership Conference’.
Don’t you just love it when the Democrats used ACORN for years to register all sorts of illegals and felons and fake people to vote? And now the Democrats refuse to have the voter roles examined in the blue states – god forbid they have to cull out all of the dead people that are registered. And doesn’t everyone just throw up their hands when the Democrats steal elections in Illinois, Minnesota and other liberal strong holds? How about when the Democratic politicians give unions money in the form of sweetheart contracts to deliver the vote?
Now, when Florida decides to craft policy to counter what the Democrats have been doing for YEARS, they are all up in arms. And that’s exactly what this is. This is why it was so significant that over 600 Republicans got elected to State Houses across the nation in 2010. Now the Republicans are sticking it right back to the Democrats and guess what – now the Democrats have newly found morals, integrity and are concerned with fairness in policy? Oh yea, I really feel so bad for them now.
This is the ugly underbelly of politics. Democratic Party operatives have for years now been doing everything they could get away with. Here in FL, they even have Democratic Party operatives handing out voting instructions to people waiting in line to vote – even though its illegal to solicit within 100 feet of people waiting in line to vote. I have personally called county elections officials and they will indeed come by to check it out – in a few days.
Lets be real honest. We hate them just as much as they hate us. Now they have to live with the exact same inner workings of election laws that they used to stick it to us for years. Don’t give them an inch – they have been rotten to the core for years and they don’t deserve to be treated with respect. I fully support anything the Republicans can legally do to stick it to the Democrats.
Starting over? Most felons wind back up in jail. But I guess that is the fault of evil Republicans. What’s next? Absentee ballots for convicted murderers?
If you were to examine a deck of cards used by Democrats, every one of them would say “race” on them.
[…] Without them, where would they be? Defending their record? Defending their policies? […]
If I were Gov. Scott, I would have asked the Florida legislature to impose a lifetime ban like Kentucky and Virginia have. In Kentucky you can have your voting rights RESTORED, but you don’t get it automatically; you have to petition. That would REALLY stick it to the Democrat party by cutting out a large portion of their base right out from under them. Richardson v. Ramirez (1974) made it Constitutional to do so; it’s time that the Conservative majorities just elected to the state houses start using the hammer that they’ve been granted.
I’m sure that the ACLU would scream about how it would have a “disparate impact” upon the African American population (much like they are today), but if administered in a racially neutral way, it would survive Constitutional scrutiny (and has) by SCOTUS.
I concur with Ipso Facto. Sometime between now and next Mid-Spring, I think that we Conservatives ought to petition the newly minted Republican statehouse majorities to ORDER the various Secretaries of State to confirm the voting rolls in order to guarantee the sanctity of fraud-free elections. I suggest Mid-Spring because that will give time to resolve the inevitable ACLU challenges that it is “racially motivated” when they manage to find a sympathetic judge who issues an “Emergency” restraining order from preventing the law from going into effect.
Isn’t this the same Democratic Party that made a special trip to the penitentiary to make sure the convicts voted in Illinois, while ignoring the votes of overseas servicemen and women?
[…] Legal Insurrection: Saturday Night Card Game (Why do they presume ex-felons will vote for Democrats?) […]
Felons should need only to meet two conditions to have all their civil rights, including voting rights, restored:
1) complete their jail sentence, including the period of post-release parole, without infraction of any kind;
2) complete repayment / restoration covering any damages they caused in commission of their crime.
Then, they go before a judge, present documentation that they have fulfilled these requirements, and have their rights are restored as a matter of record.
A five-year wait is both unnecessary and unfair.
It is my view that most felons will be unable to complete both conditions, making any waiting period moot.