[EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act

Wed Jun 25 10:42:59 PDT 2014

My sense is that Brad is correct that white-collar criminals would be a
relatively small subset of people who would benefit from the legislation.
This is mostly due to the composition of the prison population. 48% of
federal prisoners are in jail for drug offenses - which does not always
mean non-violent, but eh - and they¹re the group that is most likely to
benefit. More importantly, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
white collar crimes don¹t constitute a substantial number of the prison
population. Look at page 10 of it¹s report over "Prisoners in 2011". Fraud
and other crimes that would be classified as white collar is small.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p11.pdf

On 6/25/14, 1:12 PM, "Mitchell L. Pearl" <MPearl at langrock.com> wrote:

>Correct as to Vermont, I don't know about Maine.
>
>
>Mitchell L. Pearl
>Langrock Sperry & Wool, LLP
>PO Drawer 351
>Middlebury, VT 05753-0351
>Phone:	802-388-6356
>Fax:	802-388-6149
>mpearl at langrock.com
>www.langrock.com 
> 
>Member MERITAS Law Firms Worldwide
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Sean
>Parnell
>Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 12:10 PM
>To: 'Michael P McDonald'; 'Election Law'
>Subject: Re: [EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act
>
>To the best of my recollection, both Vermont and Maine continue to allow
>incarcerated felons to vote.
>
>Sean Parnell
>President
>Impact Policy Management, LLC
>6411 Caleb Court
>Alexandria, VA  22315
>571-289-1374 (c)
>sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of
>Michael P McDonald
>Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 12:05 PM
>To: Election Law
>Subject: Re: [EL] Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act
>
>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]
>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] 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] 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-pa
>ul
>-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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