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NAACP Hopes To Revive Debate Over Civil Rights Restoration
October 3, 2012
Hoping to take advantage of a nationwide focus on new voting restrictions, advocates of allowing former felons to more easily gain the right to vote called Tuesday for Gov. Rick Scott and the state clemency board to reverse a decision last year making the restoration of those rights more difficult.
With little more than a month before the November general election, the groups conceded that the changes were unlikely to be approved in time for the election. But they hoped that the attention being devoted to a state-by-state battle over voting rights could help boost the restoration of rights issue.
“It’s easy to do dirt in the dark,” said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous. “It’s harder to keep doing dirt in the light.”
The clemency board, which consists of Scott and the Cabinet, voted in early 2011 to reverse a policy change four years earlier allowing felons who had completed their sentences and any other requirements of the criminal justice system to more easily gain the right to vote.
The new rules require offenders to wait between five and seven years after completing their obligations to apply for their rights to be restored.
Though Attorney General Pam Bondi was also a key supporter of the change, much of the fire at a Tuesday news conference was focused on Scott.
“It should be unconscionable for all of us as citizens for a governor to turn back the clock on an entire group of citizens who, if they lived somewhere else, would be able to vote,” Jealous said.
Supporters of the restoration of civil rights said making it more difficult for felons to vote can actually make it harder for the offenders to rejoin society.
“What people don’t realize or fail to realize is once a person decides that they want to register to vote, they want to go down and make their voice be heard, that is part and parcel of being rehabilitated,” said Charles Dutton, an actor who spent years in prison for violent crimes.
As part of the effort to draw attention to the issue, the NAACP plans to have mobile billboards deployed to Florida, Virginia, Kentucky and Iowa — states that have some of the more difficult processes for the restoration of rights. Many of those rules, originally rooted in post-Civil War movements to restrict the political power of freed slaves, have since become ways of suppressing the black vote in order to hold down Democratic votes, opponents argue.
Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, said the clemency board’s decision was aimed at making it more difficult for President Barack Obama to win re-election this year. Republicans hold every seat on the clemency board.
“They saw the numbers and they saw the trend among ex-felons to vote Democratic,” Joyner said of Scott and Bondi.
Scott’s office didn’t appear to be backing down.
“Gov. Scott believes that for convicted felons to re-enter civic society, they must demonstrate a commitment to remaining crime-free as well as a willingness to request to have their rights restored,” spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said in an email.
By Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Comments
16 Responses to “NAACP Hopes To Revive Debate Over Civil Rights Restoration”
Felons CAN have their voting rights restored.
Just visit your local ACORN establishment and you can vote as many times as you’d like….
Why doesnt this article mention NAACP’s ties to Acorn the group that was found guilty and caught on video committing widespread voter fraud. Funny how this is mysteriously left out?
Rehab for felons? You have got to be kidding me.
What about everyone backing rehab and re entry for soldiers comiing home from war? Oh that’s right, that’s not on NAACPs specific agenda. We can see right through these activist groups which many contain noteable communists, socialsts and near fascist leaders. These people do not love America, they are all in it for an agenda to push anti american agendas.
You people are brainwashed, BAD!!! And the liberal media, TV, ABC NEWS, CNN, NBC, New Yrk Times, Washington post, AOL, Huffington post, PNJ, MSNBC, CBS, Slate, Newsweek are all slanted liberal. Remember when you read articles or hear news clips or video clips from these major outlets it is biasedand slatend liberal.
They will leave information out, twist numbers, “polls” and outright lie to brainwash naive americans. WAKE UP AMERICAA!!
@jb,
Since your son is Irish the NAACP does not care.
My son is a felon and I reasearched felon rights restoration a few years back.The article says that there is a five to seven year wait to be elgible for a hearing. What it doesn’t say is that there is twenty year back log to get a hearing.By the way he is Irish American.
Why don’t they work on the rights of the military to vote? Maybe the NAACP would get more support from people. They certainly would gain some respect.
If a person has repaid there debt to society why shouldn’t they be allowed to vote? I can understand not being allowed to have own a gun or not being allowed to contact a victim if convicted of a violent crime but why not be allowed to vote? Seems a little extreme to me. I don’t get it. Am I missing something here?
If they keep committing new felonies, will they need to get a new pass each time or will there be blanket coverage for life?
So naacp wants to restore voting rights to criminals?? And obama wants to strip the MILITARY of their voting rights. So where do you think this is going??? They only want the democrats to vote. America, we must put a stop to this madness!
I find it ironic that the head of the NAACP is named Ben Jealous.
The NAACP has already lost its Respect and now they Bow even Lower!
And the Democratic party has taken God out of their Platform, so how low can you go ???????
IN GOD WE TRUST
“They saw the numbers and they saw the trend among ex-felons to vote Democratic”
And that is the same thing the Democrats saw and why they want this so bad.
I agree with armymajorswife. I do not often agree with Scott, but he is absolutely right on this issue.
LOL @carolyn, I was thinking the same thing. You have to go out and dredge up votes from the bottom of the barrel in hopes of winning.
I think Gov. Scott’s thoughts are spot on. They should have to earn back those privileges. Too many people are quick to throw them away and cry foul when they don’t have them. How about not doing the crime and keeping you rights to vote, then you wouldn’t be in this mess. That goes for Republicans and Democrats, Blacks and Whites alike. I don’t care what your affiliation or color is, I agree with Gov. Scott on this issue!!!!! Stand strong and don’t back down! I would like to see one election where race was kept out of it.
The answer is simple. Stay out of jail, and you don’t have to worry about losing your rights.
Why is the NACCP so obsessed with felons, I thought their focus was the African American community?
I agree, taking the voting rights of convicted felons is a slap in the face to African Americans.
How interesting that the Democrat Party has such an interest in FELONS.