[EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act

[Steve Hoersting]

*Psst...* Partisan calculus is never a factor in any of these laws,
professor. The discussion -- everywhere and always -- is of "corruption"
and/or "disenfranchisement." Or, lately -- should the grassroots get an
even shot in any electoral contest -- of the need to quell "gridlock." Or,
my recent favorite, to "speed up" voting lines.

So I am sure you meant to say something on the order of "Senator Paul's
bill would do little to correct disenfranchisement."

And, if so, that's language we can permit ourselves to hear. And, rest
assured, we'll understand,

Steve


On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Michael P McDonald <mmcdon at gmu.edu> wrote:

> 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).
>
> ============
> 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.
>
> -
>
> 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.
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>



-- 
Steve Hoersting
CENTER for COMPETITIVE POLITICS
124 S. West Street
Suite 201
Alexandria, Va. 22314
(703) 894-6800
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20140625/f8fa1cdc/attachment.html>