Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
DeSantis should embrace new voters
At the polls last month, 5,148,926 Floridians voted in favor of Amendment 4, which restores voting rights to most ex-felons. That’s a million-plus more people than voted to make Ron DeSantis governor. So one could say voting rights are more popular than DeSantis is. Does he care?
DeSantis, who opposed the amendment, says it shouldn’t take effect until the Legislature passes a law to implement it. That matters, since he gets to appoint the secretary of state, who can tell supervisors of elections what to do — or not.
Election supervisors who believe their duty is to the Constitution will ignore DeSantis and begin registering newly eligible voters on Jan. 8, the day Amendment 4 officially becomes a part of the Florida Constitution.
Leon County Supervisor Mark Early says that’s what he’ll do. So does Polk County Supervisor Lori Edwards. We hope their doors open to a long line of disenfranchised people who’ve paid their societal debts for nonviolent felonies — like drug possession or driving under the influence — and are eager to engage in democracy.
There is nothing in Amendment 4 that allows the Legislature to stand in their way. It says clearly that:
“Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, any disqualification from voting arising from a felony conviction shall terminate and voting rights shall be restored upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation. (b) No person convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense shall be qualified to vote until restoration of civil rights.”
Twice in the same sentence it says “shall,” not “may.” It says nothing about legislation.
The sponsors intended the amendment to be self-executing. They had seen enough of Florida politicians suppressing an estimated 1.4 million former felons from voting. That Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet grudgingly restored voting rights to just a few hundred people a year inspired the amendment and is reason enough to make it effective automatically. “The language is clear that this amendment does not require enabling legislation,” said Desmond Meade of Orlando, who led the campaign.
It’s the voter’s responsibility to know their status. If they swear they are eligible to vote when they are not, they could get in felony trouble again. Should they have any doubt, they should contact the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county where they were sentenced.
If there’s anything for the Legislature to do, it would be to help provide guidance. Such guidance should not come from the former parole commission, now called the Commission on Offender Review. Glaciers move faster than that agency does. Its enormous backlog of voting restoration applications buttressed the case for Amendment 4.
The Office of the State Courts Administrator is better qualified to query local courts on whether an ex-offender has outstanding obligations under his or her sentence.
But for those certain they are square with the law, Jan. 8 is a day to be born again as a full citizen.
“January 8 is going to be a celebration — one that has the support of both the Constitution and the people,” said Neal Voltz, an ex-felon who was the campaign’s political director.
Waiting for the Legislature’s blessing would be perilous, given its history of ignoring or diluting voter-approved amendments it doesn’t support, such as medical marijuana, high-speed rail, smaller classroom sizes and funding for environmentally sensitive lands.
Moreover, the Legislature doesn’t meet until March 5. Registration deadlines will already have passed for municipal elections in Broward, Palm Beach and Orange Counties, and others across the state.
What’s most troubling about the resistance from DeSantis and those who agree with him, including Senate President Bill Galvano, is that it recalls Florida’s historic pattern of voter suppression.
Lifetime disenfranchisement for all felonies was a key strategy in the Southern resistance to the 13th Amendment, which gave the vote to all blacks following the Civil War. That amendment also was self-executing and gave Congress the power to enforce it. But it left a way for the South to deny the vote for reasons other than race, color or previous servitude.
Until Nov. 6, Florida was by far the largest of the remaining four states with lifetime felon disenfranchisement. The state came under intensifying national scrutiny when Gov. Scott and the Cabinet, in one of their first acts eight years ago, made it more difficult for ex-felons to get their voting rights restored.
It’s particularly poor optics for DeSantis to be calling for a pause right after his racially tinged victory over Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum, who’s black. Had Gillum been elected, he doubtlessly would have used his inaugural address to welcome more than a million Floridians into the electorate — the largest increase in America since 18-year-olds got the right to vote.
It’s not too late for DeSantis to welcome this wave of new voters, too.