[EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act

[Michael P McDonald]

Counter-intuitively, research suggests that this law would on balance benefit Republicans since the types of felons most likely to take advantage of restoration would be higher income "white" collar criminals (double-entendre intended).

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Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444

phone:   703-993-4191 (office)
e-mail:  dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com                
web:     http://elections.gmu.edu
twitter: @ElectProject

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Easley, Billy (Paul)
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 11:01 AM
To: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act

Ugh, I meant to say "felons" not "fans".although I'm sure former felons are fans of the legislation.

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Billy James Easley II
Legislative Counsel
Senator Rand Paul
8-6912


From: <Easley>, Billy Easley <billy_easley at paul.senate.gov>
Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 10:59 AM
To: Election Law <Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act

On Sunday, Senator Rand Paul announced that he will be introducing a voting rights law that restores the right to vote to non-violent fans in federal elections. There are 2 million American citizens in this country who have had their political voices silenced at the voting booth even though they've served their time in jail and paid their debt to society. In eleven states there are severe restrictions and onerous procedural hurdles that these citizens would need to overcome to get their right to vote back. In four of those eleven states, the ability to regain the right to vote is foreclosed forever to those with a felony record. 

Due to Richardson v. Ramirez and it's progeny there is great deal of jurisprudence that supports the ability of states to disenfranchise felons under the Other Crimes Exception of the Fourteenth Amendment. I was aware of this long before the legislation was written and have my own arguments against it but since some commentators are hammering this again (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381072/unconstitutional-bill-rand-paul-roger-clegg) I wanted to see if you folks had any thoughts about this. Specifically, whether you think Ramirez is fatal to such legislation.