Legal News

Should Felons Lose the Right to Vote?

By Ashby Jones

Should felons have the right to vote after they do their time?

As of right now, many states say no.

But a House subcommittee last week heard arguments on a new proposed bill that would require states to allow felons to vote in federal elections once they’re released from prison. Click here for the story, from Main Justice.

The bill, called the Democracy Restoration Act, is sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), and is sponsored by many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. According to Main Justice, the findings section of the bill notes that "state disenfranchisement laws disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities" and that, "given current rates of incarceration, approximately one in three of the next generation of African-American men will be disenfranchised at some point during their lifetime."

Not surprisingly perhaps, the bill’s going to face some opposition. Main Justice quotes Hans A. von Spakovsky, the former Bush administration former counselor to the Civil Rights Division as arguing that the bill "represents an unconstitutional intrusion into the rights of the states.”

The NYT on Monday makes an opposite argument on its editorial page — that felon disenfranchisement “goes against one of democracy's most fundamental principles: that governments should rule with the consent of the governed.” Continues the piece:

There is no good reason to deny former prisoners the vote. Once they are back in the community - paying taxes, working, raising families - they have the same concerns as other voters, and they should have the same say in who represents them.

. . .

Although elections are generally considered state matters, the federal government has a proud tradition of enacting laws, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when states wrongly deprive some of their citizens of the franchise. For reasons of both principle and sensible social policy, Congress should step in and give ex-offenders the right to vote.

LBers, where do you fall on this one? Do convicted felons essentially “give up” their right to vote upon proving unable to uphold society’s laws? Or should their right to vote be restored alongside a host of various other rights, like their right to own a drivers’ license and the right to own property?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).