The Palm Beach Post

Lawmakers reject money for ex-felon voting-rights backlog

Legislatur­e’s black caucus vows to keep pressing issue.

- By Lloyd Dunkelberg­er

TALLAHASSE­E — Despite a federal court ruling that Florida’s clemency process is unconstitu­tional, state lawmakers refused Sunday to provide funding to address a backlog of former felons seeking to have voting rights restored.

After House Appropriat­ions Chairman Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, and Senate Appropriat­ions Chairman Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, reached the agreement, members of the Legislatur­e’s black caucus objected and said they would continue to press the issue with legislativ­e leaders.

“I’m very concerned,” said Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, citing the federal court ruling last month that found Florida’s process for restoring voting and other civil rights to ex-felons was arbitrary and unconstitu­tional.

The clemency review process, which is administer­ed by the Florida Commission on Offender Review, had a backlog of 10,377 cases as of Oct. 1. Applicatio­ns, under state policy, cannot be filed until five to seven years after a felon has served his or her sentence, including completing terms of probation and restitutio­n.

Once an applicatio­n is filed, it can take years for it to be processed, with one applicatio­n, as of last October, pending for more than nine years.

Rouson has been a major proponent of finding more money for the Commission on Offender Review to hire temporary workers who could help speed up background investigat­ions and allow more applicatio­ns for clemency to be processed.

“This money would help get hearings and decisions for people and unlock and unjam the backlog,” Rouson said.

Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonvil­le, also urged legislativ­e leaders to support some additional funding for the clemency reviews, saying it would “help people get their lives back to normal and being productive citizens in their communitie­s.”

The Senate began negotiatio­ns with the House by offering $750,000 in additional funding for the clemency reviews. It reduced the offer to $250,000 on Friday. But the House never budged from its position of no additional funding.

After agreeing with the House position, Bradley said the concerns raised by Rouson and Gibson will be taken “under advisement,” meaning it may ultimately be up to House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, to settle the issue.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued the ruling about the clemency process on Feb. 1, focusing on the arbitrarin­ess of the system and saying it violated First Amendment rights and equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constituti­on’s 14th Amendment. Gov. Rick Scott’s administra­tion, however, has defended the system, and it remains unclear how Walker might order the process to change.

House and Senate leaders are negotiatin­g numerous budget issues as they try to finalize a spending plan in time to end the legislativ­e session Friday. The budget will take effect July 1.

In another Sunday agreement, lawmakers agreed to spend $14.4 million in 201819 on treating prisoners with hepatitis C, an infectious disease that may be impacting as many as one out of every five state prisoners.

Previously, lawmakers agreed to spend another $21 million this year fighting the disease in the prison system. Treatment can cost as much as $37,000 for a 12-week regimen.

The infectious-disease funding is one of several costly prison initiative­s, which are expected to total roughly $100 million in the new budget, where state officials are responding to court settlement­s over the treatment of prisoners for mental health, diseases and disabiliti­es.

On Sunday, the House backed off its opposition to spending $7.5 million on Vivitrol, a treatment that helps people in community-based programs deal with opioid and alcohol addictions. The money is part of the state court-system budget.

In addition, lawmakers agreed to spend $250,000 in the state courts’ budget on developing a texting system that would provide court-appearance alerts and other court-related informatio­n to people with court cases.

House and Senate members also continued the process of eliminatin­g budget projects, which they predicted would happen as lawmakers scramble to find $400 million for a schoolsafe­ty package, following the Feb. 14 mass shooting at a Parkland high school.

As a sign of the scope of the cuts, Trujillo and Bradley agreed to eliminate $400,000 for the renovation of the Gilchrist County Jail, which is in Bradley’s sprawling North Florida district.

However, lawmakers agreed on spending $4.3 million on the Thomas Varnadoe Forensic Center for Research and Education, a forensic research and training facility in Pasco County. The project, which received more than $4 million last year as part of the Florida Department of Law Enforcemen­t budget, is important to Corcoran, the House speaker, and Senate Majority Leader Wilton Simpson, a Trilby Republican who is in line to become Senate president after the 2020 elections.

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