Legal fees pile up amid challenge to felon voting law
Battle has cost Florida taxpayers $1.7M and growing
TALLAHASSEE — Florida taxpayers have spent more than $1.7 million and are on the hook for at least hundreds of thousands more in the state’s defense of a 2019 law requiring felons to pay “legal financial obligations” to be eligible to vote, according to state records.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has authorized more than $2.3 million in contracts with private lawyers, including a $265,000 agreement with Washington, D.C.-based Cooper & Kirk PLLC law firm, to represent the state in a federal appeals court, the records show.
“It’s a complete waste to defend such an unconstitutional system and, frankly, they knew going into the [2019] legislative session that they were going to be sued for it, and they have taken this course even though the law is just so fatally flawed,” said Leah Aden, NAACP Legal Defense Fund deputy director of litigation.
Aden’s organization represents some of the plaintiffs in the challenge to the constitutionality of the law.
The state’s legal fees started piling up shortly after DeSantis signed the measure (SB 7066) requiring felons to pay court-ordered fines, fees, costs and restitution associated with their convictions to be eligible to vote.
The law, approved by Republican lawmakers, was aimed at carrying out a 2018 constitutional amendment known as Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to felons “after they complete all terms of their sentences including parole and probation.”
Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits challenging the measure, alleging that linking voting rights to finances amounts to an unconstitutional “poll tax.” DeSantis and GOP lawmakers, however, maintain that the state law carries out the language of the amendment and the intentions of its backers.
Wrangling over the law is expected to wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court, with the protracted litigation inevitably spiking the state’s litigation costs. Attorneys have battled in federal district court in Tallahassee and at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta in the case, which could determine whether hundreds of thousands of felons are able to vote.
Siding with the plaintiffs in May, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle cemented an earlier decision and ruled that the state cannot deny the right to vote to felons who are “genuinely unable to pay” their court-ordered debts. The state appealed the ruling.
Charles Cooper of Cooper & Kirk represented the state in the Aug. 18 arguments. Under a contract executed by DeSantis’ general counsel, Joe Jacquot, in November, the state agreed to pay Cooper’s firm a flat fee of $250,000 for legal services, plus $15,000 for other costs.
Cooper also represented the DeSantis administration at the appellate court in the state’s appeal of an October preliminary injunction issued by Hinkle. A threejudge panel heard arguments in that appeal in January and upheld Hinkle’s temporary injunction in a February decision.
Before signing the contract with Cooper & Kirk, the DeSantis administration entered into agreements with the Tallahassee-based firm Hopping Green & Sams and Holland & Knight LLP to work on the case.
A week before DeSantis signed the law last year, Hopping Green & Sams inked an $800,000 contract with the Florida Department of State “to provide litigation services in matters concerning the implementation of Amendment 4 and Senate Bill 7066.”
The state has paid the firm $572,135.65 to date, according to information on the Florida Department of Financial Services website.
Less than a month after the Hopping deal, the Department of State signed a $1.275 million contract with
Holland & Knight “to provide litigation services and assistance with expedited discovery” in the case. The terms of the agreement capped costs for legal services at $1.2 million, with the remainder for expenses. The year-long contract expired on July 1.
The state has paid Holland & Knight $1,143,085.98 to date, according to the Department of Financial Services website.
So far, the
state has shelled out a total of $1,715,221.63. Florida has committed to spending nearly $2 million, including Cooper’s fee. If the state pays the full amount of all three contracts, the total would be $2.34 million.
The costs calculated by The News Service of Florida are based on contracts and payments posted on the DFS website. Aides to DeSantis and Secretary of State Laurel Lee have not provided information.