VRA PANEL DISCUSSION RICHMOND HEIGHTS – 2013-7-11
Future of Florida’s Franchise Focus of Forum
Story by José Pérez
Late last month, State Representative Kionne McGhee (D-117)
organized a panel discussion to talk about the recent Supreme Court ruling that
effectively eviscerated the protections contained in the 1965 the Voting Rights
Act as well as emerging voting legislation and right restoration for
ex-offenders in Florida. The
discussion, which was open to the public and held at Martin Memorial AME Church
in Richmond Heights, featured an all-star roster of panelists.
Late last month, the United States Supreme Court ruled that
a key element in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the so-called “coverage
formula,” was unconstitutional. That formula was used to determine which states
required permission from the federal government before those states could enact
changes to voting laws and/or procedures.
By essentially invalidating a key provision of the Voting Rights Act,
the high court has opened the proverbial door for states make changes to
election laws with no clearance from Washington, D.C. needed.
The case against the Voting Rights Act was based on the
argument that, because African-Americans are voting and holding office in
record numbers including in the South, the landmark legislation was no longer relevant.
One prominent member of the High Court disagreed. In an interview with the Associated Press,
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said doing away with the VRA was "like
throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting
wet."
In his opening remarks, McGhee insisted that, according
to the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “you cannot take
away a person’s right to vote” but followed with a question.
“Is the 10th Amendment more important than the
15th Amendment?” The 10th
Amendment states that “The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Thus, the question for McGhee, the panelists, and the
approximately 40 people that were present in the pews of Martin Memorial
centered on the validity of states in general and Florida in particular to
enact voting laws that ran contrary to the wording and spirit of the 15th
Amendment and its protections of suffrage for citizens.
The discussion began with historical perspective on the
Voting Rights Act. Howard Simon,
Executive Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said that
the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was “the heart and soul of what the Civil Rights
Movement achieved.”
Simon drew attention to Section 5 of the Voting Rights
Act which focused on states with a history of discrimination, virtually all of
which are in the Southeastern United States, comprising what had once been the
heart of the seditious Confederate States of America. That section, Simon said, stipulated that no
changes can be made to voting laws in those states without approval from the Department
of Justice. According to Simon,
approximately 700 potentially discriminatory voting practices were blocked by
the DOJ under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
With oppressive obstacles to voting such poll taxes and
literacy tests removed under compulsion from the federal government, the VRA
afforded many African-Americans and even poor whites the opportunity to cast
ballots throughout the South. “It
literally changed the face of the South,” said Simon
The NAACP’s Bradford Brown, who along with Simon worked
as an activist in Alabama over a half century ago, said that the 15th
Amendment was essentially “voting rights enforcement.”
Donald Jones, a professor of constitutional law at the
University of Miami’s law school, said that the judicial decision – split with
a 5-4 decision among its Justices – was “backlash” from not just electing a
Black man to be president of the United States but doing so twice.
Almost immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling, some
previously affected states acted on it.
Texas announced that it would move forward with executing a voter
identification law that was passed in Austin in 2011 but was blocked by the
Department of Justice. Mississippi said
that a similar law would go into effect in time for next summer’s primaries
while leaders in North Carolina promised an expedited process with their own
voter ID bill which was passed last week
In turn, the Department of Justice launched a legal
counterattack with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder vowing to focus first on
Texas utilizing elements of the Voting Rights Act left unchanged by the
landmark decision. Specifically, Holder
is pinning his hopes on the belief that Section 3(c) can make up for what is no
longer available to DOJ officials in Section 4(b). Holder said the DOJ plans “to fully utilize
the [Voting Rights Act’s] remaining sections to ensure that the voting rights
of all American citizens are protected."
The Attorney General is not alone in pursuing the 3(c)
avenue in the Lone Star state. In a suit
filed last week in Texas, a group of Latino Texans argued that "because
the State of Texas is no longer subject to the preclearance provisions of
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act through the formula in Section 4(b), Section
3(c) relief is available against the State." According the suit, "Section 3(c) relief
is warranted in this case because existing evidence establishes intentional
voting discrimination and other proceedings provide overwhelming evidence of
constitutional violations in and by the State."
Not everyone, however, is supporting Holder’s moves. "Attorney General Eric Holder proves he
is more interested in political stunts than enforcing the law," said
Horace Cooper, Co-Chair of Project 21, a conservative African-American think tank,
in a written statement.
Maribel Balbin of the League of Women Voters of
Miami-Dade County, added that “we were already under siege” in Florida before
the Supreme Court’s decision, citing increasingly pitched political and legal
battles between her organization and a Republican Party-controlled State
Legislature. For example, in 2011, the
League of Women Voters sued to get a ten day extension to the existing voter
registration period and the very morning of the panel discussion in Richmond
Heights, the Florida Supreme Court sided with the League ruling that the
Florida Legislature could not bypass trial in a legal fight over concerns of
gerrymandering.
ThinkProgress reported that Florida’s on-again, off-again
moves to purge voter rolls is officially back on track after a federal appeals
court tossed out a suit in response to the Supreme Court's decision. According
to AP, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced plans to restart the
voter roll purge. This comes just two months after Florida Govenor Rick Scott
signed a bill that brought back some early voting days which he advocated
removing just a couple of years earlier.
The Palm Beach Post
published a story last week in which Jim Greer, a former leading member of the
Florida Republican Party said that those same voter purge initiatives were
motivated more by fear of Democratic electoral victories than any concern over
voting fraud.
“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants,
they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,”
Greer said to The Post. “It’s done
for one reason and one reason only: ‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting
because early voting is not good for us.’ ”
The Post also
reported that a GOP campaign consultant, Wayne Bertsch, was aware of the same
hidden agenda. “In the races I was involved in in 2008, when we started seeing
the increase of turnout and the turnout operations that the Democrats were
doing in early voting, it certainly sent a chill down our spines."
For Balbin, the remedy for the sudden lifting of
protections against encroachments was simple. “We need strong federal standards.”
According to TruthOut.org, hearings on developing a new
formula to determine which areas should be subject to pre-clearance have been
held in Congress but added that there is little optimism that anything will be
enacted in the near future.
Given the profound worries conveyed by the speakers at
the forum, Jones compared the Court’s decision in this matter to the Dred Scott
case of the mid-19th century. “This is
a court that doesn’t remember our history,” he said. “They have historical amnesia.”
Another problem discussed by the panel concerned the high
number of Floridians are not allowed to vote.
“One out of every four African-American males in Florida are
disenfranchised,” said Desmond Meade, a local activist and law student at
Florida International University’s School of Law. Why are so many Black men in Florida not
allowed to vote? Convicted felons in
Florida lose the right to vote and, in this area, it ranks number one. “Florida leads nation in disenfranchisement,”
Meade said.
Felon disenfranchisement dates back to 1868 to uphold
institution of white power in Tallahassee, added Simon.
The problem is huge, said panelists. Meade reported that “1.5 million people in
Florida are ‘returning citizens,’” using that strength-based term as an
alternative to the more commonly-used “ex-felons.”
Most returning citizens are disenfranchised for
non-violent offenses (such as trapping an under-sized lobster, disturbing a sea
turtle’s nest, et cetera). When they are released from prison, returning
citizens in Florida cannot vote, cannot run for office, and, in the case of
Meade who is himself a returning citizen, cannot sit for the state bar
examination.
While it is possible for a disenfranchised Floridian to
have his or her rights restored, it is a daunting and often fruitless
process. Typically, a returning citizen
must wait between 5 to 7 years before he can apply to have his or her rights
restored. The application process can
take up to six years and, according to Meade, less than 1% actually succeed in
having those rights restored. “You might
as well be a slave,” lamented Meade, a sentiment echoed by attorney Christopher
Benjamin who also served on the panel.
For many Floridians, that amounts - essentially – to a
lifetime disenfranchisement which Simon called the “biggest voting scandal in
the country.”
Christina White, Acting Chief Deputy Supervisor of
Elections for Miami-Dade County, brought voter registration forms as well as
forms with which voters could update the signature they have on record with the
Elections Department. This is important
because in order for an absentee ballot submitted to be valid, the signature on
the ballot must match the signature on record with the Elections Department.
Voter turnout for local elections is usually only between
20-30%, said White.
White also talked about HB7013, the Election Reform Bill
of 2013 which expands sites that can be used for voting. The Bill also gives local elections
supervisors the power to expand early voting days up to 14 days (including the
Sunday before an election) at their discretion.
Simon, however, has his doubts. “Your right to vote will depend on which
county you live in.” He also pointed out
that most of the Black voters that cast their ballot for Barack Obama voted
early.
That local aspect to the evening’s discussion was a
recurring theme. “A lot of these
problems,” pointed out Simon, “are local problems that we can address.” It was because of that that some in
attendance were doubly-concerned. “We
are in an area where [these issues are] predominant,” said Jerry Alleyne-Nagee
of Perrine. “There are a host of people that are suffering but I do not see
this room packed up”
For perspective, Meade highlighted the fact that it only
took a few million people to get Governor Rick Scott elected in 2010 (2.6
million) and President Obama reelected in 2012 (4.2 million).
