[EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act

Wed Jun 25 09:16:56 PDT 2014

There's even more research on this topic. I suggest the following:

Traci Burch. 2010. "Did Disenfranchisement Laws Help Elect President Bush? New Evidence on the Turnout Rates and Candidate Preferences of Florida's Ex-Felons." Political Behavior. (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-010-9150-9)

Traci Burch. 2011. "Turnout and Party Registration among Criminal Offenders in the 2008 General Election." Law and Society Review. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00448.x/full)

Alan Gerber et al. 2013. "Felony Status, Participation, and Political Reintegration: Results from a Field Experiment." Working paper. (http://huber.research.yale.edu/materials/44_paper.pdf)

Vesla Weaver and Amy E. Lerman. 2010. "Political Consequences of the Carceral State." American Political Science Review. (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7947625&fileId=S0003055410000456)

Barry

On 06/25/14, Michael P McDonald  <mmcdon at gmu.edu> wrote:
> The article I believe I am referring to is:
> 
> Hjalmarsson, Randi and Mark Lopez. 2010. "The Voting Behavior of Young Disenfranchised Felons: Would They Vote if They Could?" American Law and Economics Review 12(2):265-279.
> 
> http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/2/356.abstract
> 
> I reviewed an anonymous version of a similar article. Regrettably, I don't seem to have electronic access through my university to the journal - which is surprising since it is an Oxford journal - so I can't verify.
> 
> This recent working paper by Meredith and Morse appears to challenge the article, and has lots of good references:
> 
> http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~marcmere/workingpapers/IowaFelons.pdf
> 
> For the record, I believe that a democracy works best when all persons are engaged, regardless of their partisanship, so I am naturally supportive of automatic restoration of felon voting rights. I further support felon enfranchisement for even prisoners, as is the policy in some Western democracies and was Massachusetts policy until 2000 -- tongue in cheek, the GOTV operation must have been interesting!
> 
> ============
> 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
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Smith, Brad [mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu] <BSmith at law.capital.edu]> 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 11:42 AM
> To: Michael P McDonald; Election Law
> Subject: RE: [EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act
> 
> Michael,
> 
> Is your comment based on data or supposition, i.e. does the research show only that white collar criminals are more likely to vote, or does it also show that, once voting, they also vote Republican? I ask because I recall reading somewhere a while back that white collar criminals tended to vote Democratic - Leona Helmsley, Michael Millkin, etc. But that may also have just been anecdotal.
> 
> Also, I presume (perhaps incorrectly) that white collar criminals are a relatively small minority of those whose voting rights would be restored, so even if they voted Republican, and voted in higher percentages, the net effect of Paul's bill could be a substantial Democratic edge. 
> 
> For the record, I think felons who have otherwise served their sentences should have voting rights restored.
> 
> Bradley A. Smith
> Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault 
>  Professor of Law
> Capital University Law School
> 303 East Broad Street
> Columbus, OH 43215
> (614) 236-6317
> bsmith at law.capital.edu
> http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu]> On Behalf Of Michael P McDonald
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 11:19 AM
> To: Election Law
> Subject: Re: [EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act
> 
> 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] <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. _______________________________________________
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--
Barry C. Burden
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Political Science
faculty.polisci.wisc.edu/bcburden
electionadmin.wisc.edu
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