While many Democrats are caught up in protesting, combating, and resisting the madness unleashed by a Republican Party hellbent on playing “follow the raving loon” seated in the oval office, we must also be preparing for the upcoming midterm elections of 2018. Organized efforts to take back the House, make inroads into the Senate, and change the balance of power in Republican-controlled state legislatures will be key. On-the-ground work to get more Democrats registered to vote and to the polls, thwarting voter suppression, and targeting unjust laws that prevent groups of people—many of whom are black or ethnic minorities—from voting at all are a crucial part of what Democrats need to do to save this nation in the years ahead.
I get pretty pissed off when I hear people dismiss the rights of those who have been convicted of felonies, and as a result have lost the right to vote—for life. The stigma thrown at "criminals," "ex-cons,” "felons,” and ”jail-birds” who are stereotyped and portrayed as sub-human thugs who shouldn’t have the same rights as “upstanding citizens” (read: white folks) makes me wanna holler. One of the people loudly pushing these smears has been Donald Trump.
Nine out of 10 of my male friends and kin have been busted—for something or other—during their lifetimes. The criminal injustice system has a long history of incarcerating my brothers (and increasingly, my sisters) and slapping them with far harsher sentences than whites who commit the same offenses—if they get a sentence at all.
These data from The Sentencing Project should give you pause:
A striking 6.1 million Americans are prohibited from voting due to laws that disenfranchise citizens convicted of felony offenses. Felony disenfranchisement rates vary by state, as states institute a wide range of disenfranchisement policies. The 12 most extreme states restrict voting rights even after a person has served his or her prison sentence and is no longer on probation or parole; such individuals in those states make up over 50 percent of the entire disenfranchised population.2) Only two states, Maine and Vermont, do not restrict the voting rights of anyone with a felony conviction, including those in prison.
[...] Felony disenfranchisement policies have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. Black Americans of voting age are more than four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population, with one of every 13 black adults disenfranchised nationally. In four states – Florida (21 percent), Kentucky (26 percent), Tennessee (21 percent), and Virginia (22 percent – more than one in five black adults is disenfranchised. In total, 2.2 million black citizens are banned from voting.
Join me in examining the problem, and looking at groups who are fighting back and could use your support.
First stop is Florida, and the work of Floridians for a Fair Democracy:
Florida Supreme Court considers allowing vote to end permanent felon disenfranchisement
Florida currently has one of the strictest felon disenfranchisement laws in the country — only Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Iowa permanently bar those with felony convictions from voting for life, unless they seek clemency.
The clemency process in Florida is notoriously difficult. During his term, former Gov. Charlie Crist made it easier for former felons to regain their rights, restoring the right to vote to more than 155,000 felons. But current Gov. Rick Scott (R) reversed that change in 2011 and mandated a waiting period before felons could even apply for clemency. Just 2,487 people have regained their voting rights since Scott took office in 2010.
Floridians for a Fair Democracy chair Demond Meade is one of the more than one and a half million Floridians who cannot vote in elections, including last year’s election when his wife ran for state legislature.
“In 2008, it hurt not to be able to be a part of a historic election, but I have even more pain now because I can’t even vote for my own wife,” he told ThinkProgress before Florida’s primary in March 2016. “It’s un-American and totally unfair. I should have that right.”
Florida’s disenfranchisement law dates back to the post-Civil War era when the state specifically wanted to keep black residents from gaining political power. Voting advocates have pointed to its racist past in pushing for a legal change, arguing that former felons are better able to reintegrate into society when they are able to regain their rights.
National organizations who address voting rights include the previously mentioned Sentencing Project and:
I am also keeping my eyes turned to the newly formed National Democratic Redistricting Committee chaired by Eric Holder, which will be addressing Republican gerrymandering/redistricting.
Republican gerrymandered districts after the 2010 Census have put Democrats at a massive structural disadvantage. That’s why the most important turning point for the future of the Democratic Party will take place in 2021: when states redraw their Congressional and state legislative lines.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) is an organization of Democratic leaders enacting a comprehensive, multi-cycle Democratic Party redistricting strategy over the next 5 years and beyond.
Chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, the NDRC was created in 2016 to build a targeted, state-by-state strategy that ensures Democrats can produce fairer maps in the 2021 redistricting process. With fairer maps, Democrats can rebuild the party from the state level, and secure a stable federal majority for the decade to come.
Holder has called for the restoration of voting rights.
One of the journalists you should follow who focuses on voting issues is Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.
Countless books have been written about the civil rights movement, but far less attention has been paid to what happened after the dramatic passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 1965 and the turbulent forces it unleashed. Give Us the Ballot tells this story for the first time.
In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the VRA and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit voting rights, from 1965 to the present day. The act enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. And yet, fifty years later, we are still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power, with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and with the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.
Here is Berman discussing his book with journalist Bob Herbert:
We’ve heard an incredible amount of noise from Republicans about alleged voter fraud, and from Donald Trump, who said, even after he was elected president, that millions of people had voted illegally. Now we have the reports from the men and women of both parties who supervised the 2016 general election all across the country. The consensus was overwhelming. Out of 137 million ballots cast, the number of fraudulent votes that occurred was close to zero. Trump’s claim that millions of people voted illegally was preposterous. But what was demonstrably true was the continuing outrageous, and often outrageously successful, efforts by Republicans to prevent Americans from exercising their legal right to vote. The abhorrent practice of voter suppression is alive and well, and its shameful stain is spreading now that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been so disastrously undermined. Bob talks about this with guest, Ari Berman, a senior contributing writer for The Nation magazine and author of the book, “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.”
Where do your elected officials stand on voting rights and felon disenfranchisement? If they don’t have a statement on their web pages, drop them a query or give them a call to find out why not.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has been outspoken on the issue, joining with other senators to introduce the Democracy Restoration Act in 2015.
U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) along with Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), have introduced a bill, the Democracy Restoration Act, to strengthen communities by reducing recidivism rates through the restoration of voting rights to individuals after they have served their time and have been released from incarceration. S. 772 would restore voting rights in federal elections to the million Americans who are out of prison and living in the community. Studies indicate that former prisoners who have voting rights restored are less likely to reoffend, and that disenfranchisement hinders their rehabilitation and reintegration into their community.
They were joined by Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Companion legislation will be introduced today in the House of Representatives by Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Missouri Democrat Jason Kander has launched "Let America Vote."
From the website:
Extreme voter suppression laws that disproportionately impact people based on their race or ethnicity, gender, age, or income have started popping up all over the country. If we don’t fight back, more and more Americans will become disenfranchised.
I would be remiss if I didn't include a clip from my favorite grassroots leader: the Rev. William Barber, who has led the Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina to mobilize against voter suppression and voter ID laws.
Barber sees voter suppression as a moral issue.
Amen, Rev. Barber. Amen.