https://themilitant.com/2019/01/26/florida-voting-rights-victory-spurs-fights-in-iowa-kentucky/
Florida voting rights victory spurs fights in Iowa, Kentucky
By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 83/No. 5
February 4, 2019
The successful fight to restore voting rights to more than a million
former prisoners in Florida has spread to Iowa and Kentucky.
Constitutional provisions in those two states continue to bar the right
to vote to most people released after serving time on felony
convictions, as had been the case in Florida before last November’s
overwhelming passage of Amendment 4.
What these three states had in common was that only a successful appeal
to the governor could win the right to vote.
Now those convicted of felonies in Florida automatically regain their
right to vote once they’ve completed their sentence, including probation
or parole and paying fines, except for those convicted of sex offenses
or murder. That’s a step forward toward eliminating all restrictions
there and across the country.
“The push to change the Iowa constitution is definitely getting
attention because of Florida,” Michelle Heinz, executive director of the
Inside Out Reentry Community, told the Militant by phone from Iowa City
Jan. 19. “We feel a little gassed up and want to get things moving.”
Inside Out helps former prisoners get jobs, housing and medical care.
Some 52,000 people convicted of felonies are unable to vote in Iowa.
Blacks are hardest hit by the undemocratic restrictions, with nearly one
in 10 blocked from voting.
The Iowa Constitution says that “no idiot, or insane person, or person
convicted of any infamous crime, shall be entitled to the privilege of
an elector” unless the governor restores their right personally. The
state Supreme Court has ruled that all felony convictions are “infamous”
crimes.
In 2005, then-Gov. Tom Vilsack issued an executive order automatically
restoring those rights. By the end of 2010 some 115,000 former prisoners
regained their right to vote.
But in January 2011, incoming Gov. Terry Branstad reversed the executive
order. By the time he left office last year, he had restored the right
to vote to only 206 people.
Unlike in Florida, the only way a constitutional amendment can get on
the ballot in Iowa is for the legislature to approve it two years in a
row. After that it’s put on the ballot for a popular vote.
Since the victory in Florida, newly elected Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has
said she plans to submit a bill to get things going.
“We want the governor to issue an executive order like Vilsack did so
people can get back their right to vote right away. And we don’t want
any types of felony convictions excluded,” Heinz said. “But the only way
to really guarantee these rights is to change the constitution.”
Doren Walker, 56, who was released from prison in December 2016 after
serving more than 10 years on a felony charge, recently applied to get
his rights back from the governor.
“It’s rough getting out of prison and at first getting my right to vote
back was not a priority,” he told the Militant from Kalona, Iowa. “I’ve
been very lucky. I’m driving a milk truck and the community I live in
has a lot of Amish and Mennonites. They treat you how you are today and
don’t judge you for a mistake in the past.”
Walker volunteers with Inside Out. A staff member there convinced him to
apply to get his rights restored. But the process is convoluted, Walker
said. You have to fill out a form and pay $15 to get the state
Department of Criminal Investigation to generate a report. The
governor’s office said it could take up to two years.
“I’m like, why?” Walker said. “They said the application has to go
through a lot of departments and that’s just how it works.”
Walker’s story was featured on the front page of the Iowa City
Press-Citizen. The next day, he was informed that his request had been
approved. “Ideally this will bring awareness so that the constitution is
changed,” he said.
Nearly one in 10 residents of Kentucky — including one in four
African-Americans — are barred from voting because of felony
convictions. In early January, the Fair Elections Center and the
Kentucky Equal Justice Center joined a lawsuit by several ex-prisoners
challenging the restrictions.
In November 2015 outgoing Gov. Steve Beshear issued an executive order
automatically restoring voting rights to more than 100,000 ex-felons.
But current Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin upon assuming office overturned the
order. He says he has personally restored the right to more than 1,000
former prisoners who applied, but he opposes the lawsuit.
The Socialist Workers Party in Kentucky is one of the groups pushing to
change the constitution there. “My party defends the right of all
workers who’ve been behind bars to vote. Our campaign calls for a fight
to overturn this law,” said Amy Husk, SWP candidate for Kentucky
governor, in a statement released to the press Jan. 9.
“The Socialist Workers Party campaigns for class solidarity between
workers behind bars and those outside. Prisons and the capitalist
rulers’ whole criminal ‘justice’ system aren’t set up to dispense
justice, but to intimidate and keep working people in their place,” she
said.
“Winning voting rights for all former prisoners is part of the fight to
unify the working class,” Husk said, “to bring us together as equals in
the struggle to overturn capitalist oppression and exploitation.”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Los Angeles teachers won with broad strike support
•UK capitalist rulers ‘Brexit’ political crisis continues on
•Florida voting rights victory spurs fights in Iowa, Kentucky
•SWP Dallas campaign attracts working-class interest in Texas
•Liberal, FBI anti-Trump ‘resistance’ is a threat to working people’s rights
Feature Articles •José Ramón Fernández: Revolutionary of exemplary integrity
Also In This Issue •Chicago cop who killed Laquan McDonald gets prison
•SWP takes books, ‘Militant’ broadly to working people
•Readers contribute to winter appeal for ‘Militant’
•An Unconditional Soldier of the Revolution
•‘Don’t make us go West Virginia on you!’
Books of the Month •Jew-hatred incited by capitalist rulers in times of
crisis
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Corrections
© Copyright 2019 The Militant - 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor - New
York, NY 10018 - themilitant@xxxxxx
--
________________________________________________
Jules Verne
“ Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add
nothing to them. ”
― Jules Verne