Don't Disenfranchise Millions

Wednesday 04 March 2009

by: Erika Wood | Visit article original @ The Politico

The Democracy Restoration Act, which will soon be introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), would restore voting rights to people with felony convictions. (Photo: Chris Livingston / The New York Times)

Last week the Poverty Forum, a new coalition of Christian leaders and policy experts from both conservative and liberal camps, convened in Washington. And in a rare instance of true bipartisanship, the group voiced support for legislation - including the Democracy Restoration Act - specifically tailored to meet the needs of the most marginalized Americans.

Soon to be introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), the Democracy Restoration Act would restore voting rights to people with felony convictions who are out of prison and living in the community. The measure is urgently needed, as felony disenfranchisement laws expose one of the greatest hypocrisies of our country.

We purport to be the land of freedom and democracy, yet we imprison a greater percentage of our population than any other country in the world. And we deny the right to vote to a greater percentage of our potential electorate than any other democracy in the world.

More than 5 million American citizens are disenfranchised because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of these citizens are out of prison - living in the community, working, raising families and paying taxes alongside the rest of us - but still denied the right to vote, often for decades and sometimes for life. Thirty-five states continue to deny the right to vote to Americans who are out of prison.

There is no greater scourge on our country's moral standing than our history of slavery and its progeny of Jim Crow, mass imprisonment and disenfranchisement. And make no mistake, America's felony disenfranchisement laws trace their roots straight back to Jim Crow. They were enacted alongside the notorious poll taxes, grandfather clauses and literacy tests. Targeted criminalization and felony disenfranchisement combined to create the legal loss of voting rights, usually for life, effectively suppressing the African-American vote for decades. The intended effects continue to this day. Nationwide, 13 percent of African-American men have lost the right to vote. If current incarceration rates continue, three in 10 of the next generation of black men will lose the right to vote at some point in their lives.

Felony disenfranchisement laws present perhaps the ultimate challenge in reform: the high-voltage nexus of race, crime and politics for which it is traditionally difficult to build bipartisan support. At the same time, the injustices created by these laws call upon people of all ideologies to recognize the true ideals of our democracy and the fundamental principles of fairness, community, redemption and forgiveness.

The right to vote forms the core of American democracy. Our modern democracy stands for nothing if not the basic tenet that each citizen is entitled to one vote, and each vote counts the same regardless of who casts it. Voting is the essence of political equality, and it is that equality that forms the very foundation upon which the legitimacy of our government relies. Removing 4 million Americans from the electorate creates an undeniable inequity - an entire population of second-class citizens. Under the Democracy Restoration Act, the last blanket barrier to the franchise would topple.

There are many issues on which Republicans and Democrats may never agree. But there are others that resonate in terms of this country's founding principles and that form a shared foundation for those who are looking for real solutions to pervasive social problems. Restoring the right to vote to Americans who are living in our communities, raising families, starting their lives over and seeking every opportunity to succeed is one of these common-sense solutions. The Poverty Forum should be applauded for its clear, bold statement of shared values.

And in the true spirit of bipartisanship, Congress and President Barack Obama should heed its call to make the Democracy Restoration Act the law of the land.

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Erika Wood is deputy director of the Democracy Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.