Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Testimony of Amendment 4 advocate emerges in fight for felon voting
TALLAHASSEE — Elections experts, civil-rights leaders and potential voters spent the week excoriating a state law requiring felons to pay court-ordered “legal financial obligations” to be eligible to vote.
But defending the law to a federal judge on Friday, attorneys representing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration turned to a man who garnered international acclaim for his advocacy of a 2018 constitutional amendment designed to restore felons’ voting rights.
Lawyers for DeSantis played a video deposition of Orlando resident Desmond Meade, who said he stands behind the disputed law, which the Republican-controlled Legislature passed last year to carry out the constitutional amendment.
Meade, who heads the nonprofit Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, told the state’s lawyers that, while the 2019 law (SB 7066) was imperfect, he and his colleagues did not oppose it.
“Was it the most ideal legislation? No, it wasn’t, right? But it was legislation that we felt like we could live with,” Meade, a law school graduate, said during a Jan. 14 deposition. “We could live with it, and we were fully prepared to operate under the color of the law and operate under the provisions that was created within 7066 and allow us to actually engage Floridians from, once again, all walks of life, all political persuasions, and getting them engaged in our democracy.”
The 2018 constitutional amendment restored voting rights to felons “who have completed all terms of their sentence, including parole and probation.” Republican legislators in the 2019 law included the requirement that felons who’ve served their time behind bars pay court-ordered fees, fines, costs and restitution before being able to cast ballots.
Voting-rights groups challenged the statute, alleging that linking finances and voting rights amounts to an unconstitutional “poll tax.” DeSantis’ administration insists that the state law faithfully carries out the language of the amendment. A trial in the case began on Monday and continued throughout the week, with U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, attorneys and witnesses participa
ting via video and the public listening over the telephone.
Lawyers for the Republican governor began presenting their defense Friday afternoon, playing the videotaped deposition of Meade, who was originally convicted of drug crimes and, later, of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm. He tried for years to have his voting rights restored under the state’s cumbersome and lengthy clemency process before turning his efforts to what became known as Amendment 4.
National groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Campaign Legal Center, the NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center — have castigated the 2019 law in the legal challenge, which could determine whether hundreds of thousands of felons who’ve served their time behind bars are eligible to vote in the presidential election this fall.
Prior to the passage of the 2019 legislation, Meade and other leaders of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition maintained that Amendment 4 was self-executing and did not require implementation by the Legislature. But Meade and his organization have not joined other plaintiffs in the lawsuit and have not publicly condemned the law.
Meade said in the deposition that Republican lawmakers who crafted the bill did not intend to discriminate against black voters, contradicting one of the arguments made by plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs’ experts testified this week that GOP lawmakers were repeatedly warned that requiring payment of legal financial obligations would have a disproportionately negative impact on black felons, who face a tougher time finding employment after they are released from prison and make up 20 percent of the convicted felons known as “returning citizens” by proponents of Amendment 4.
During Meade’s deposition, DeSantis’ lawyers pointed to a document several groups, including Meade’s organization, sent to Secretary of State Laurel Lee in December 2018 that said “completion of all terms of sentence” encompasses financial obligations that “may include restitution and fines imposed as part of a sentence or a condition of probation.”