David Leonhardt: G.O.P. vs. voting rights (yes, again)

Undermining a Florida ballot initiative. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, April 9, 2019 [NYTimes.com/David-Leonhardt »]( [Op-Ed Columnist] Op-Ed Columnist It was one of the most hopeful outcomes on election night last year. By a margin of [nearly two to one]( — signaling a rare bipartisan consensus — Florida voters approved Amendment 4. It restored voting rights to about 1.5 million people who had previously been convicted of a felony and had completed their sentence. The result overturned a modern form of mass disenfranchisement. About 10 percent of Florida’s voting-age citizens could not vote because of a past conviction. Among black Floridians, the share was almost 20 percent. But now the story in Florida is looking less hopeful because Republican lawmakers are looking for ways to undermine the amendment. One possibility is expanding the list of crimes that would make some potential voters ineligible to have their rights restored; currently, only murder and felony sexual offense are on that list. Another is a bill in the state House that would keep people disenfranchised so long as they owed money to the state from judicial fees. Florida’s system of criminal fees is notoriously onerous and complicated. To help fund its criminal justice system, the state [bills defendants for many administrative costs]( (beyond any restitution that criminals are ordered to pay). These fees cover services like prison health care and public-defender representation. If you think that denying someone the right to vote because of an outstanding bill sounds vaguely familiar, I agree. It sounds like a historical echo of the poll taxes that kept poor African-Americans from voting in the 20th century. Nobody seems to know how many people would lose their right to vote if these efforts become law. But it could be a large number: [Mark Joseph Stern]( of Slate suggests as many as 79 percent. Why are Republicans doing this? They seem to fear the electoral effects of restoring voting rights to a disproportionately African-American group. In a closely divided swing state, keeping even a smaller number of voters off the rolls could prove decisive, notes Washington Monthly’s [Nancy LeTourneau](. It’s an ugly power grab. It’s also part of a trend, in which Republican politicians in [Missouri]( and [Utah]( — and Democratic politicians in [Washington, D.C.]( — have set out to overturn the results of ballot initiatives. Amendment 4 sent “a clear message from the voters themselves that they want to expand access to democracy to include more voices, and that they want a better electoral system,” Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice told my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick. “For the folks who were elected under the old electoral system to try to undermine that change is a cynical and anti-democratic thing to do.” ADVERTISEMENT If you enjoy this newsletter, forward it to friends! They can [sign up for themselves here]( — and they don’t need to be a Times subscriber. The newsletter is published every weekday, with help from my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick. David’s Morning NYT Read [Trump’s Immigration Crisis]( By ROSS DOUTHAT Behind the flailing lies a potential disaster for immigration hawks. The Full Opinion Report [Why Does Trump Want to Debase the Fed?]( By PAUL KRUGMAN The tax cut fizzled; send in the clowns! 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