[EL] "The Racist Origins of Felon Disenfranchisement"

[Rob Richie]

I would say the real origin relates to a conversation we still have today:
is voting primarily a privilege or an unqualified right of adult
citizenship? The 19th century experienced a general wide expansion of
suffrage rights, but started with a very limited pool of eligible voters. A
great book on this history is Alex Keyssar's "The Right to Vote."

I would suggest, along with Keyssar, Jamie Raskin, Lani Guinier and various
others that we still would benefit from taking on that conversation
directly, although am aware that some respected scholars like Rick Hasen
and Heather disagree.

Rob Richie
On Nov 19, 2014 10:56 AM, "Sean Parnell" <sean at impactpolicymanagement.com>
wrote:

> There’s a bit of a disconnect in the data and the conclusion regarding the
> opinion piece ““The Racist Origins of Felon Disenfranchisement.” There was
> indeed an “explosion” in felon disenfranchisement laws in the post-Civil
> War era, specifically the late 1860’s and 1870’s. But two points are worth
> making:
>
>
>
> 1.       Many states had felon disenfranchisement laws before the Civil
> War – California, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
> Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon,
> Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to the
> research cited by the article’s author. This suggests an *origin* of
> felon disenfranchisement laws other than racism.
>
> 2.       Many of the states that adopted felon disenfranchisement laws in
> the ‘60s and ‘70s were indeed Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
> Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and
> Texas), which would seem to fit nicely with the idea that it was racism
> driving these laws, except that to the best of my recollection most if not
> all of these states were under the control of the ‘Radical Republicans’
> pursuing the Reconstruction agenda, which relied to some degree on
> maximizing black turnout in order to maintain political control –
> suggesting something else perhaps motivating the passage of these laws. I
> should also note that Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, and Nebraska were among
> the states adding felon disenfranchisement laws to their books in this time
> period, I don’t know about IL and MO but to the best of my knowledge
> neither Colorado or Nebraska had quite the toxic racist sentiments that
> prevailed in much of the old Confederacy.
>
>
>
> I should note, I haven’t had (and won’t have) the time to verify #2, that
> state legislatures were under the control of Radical Republicans relying on
> black votes in each or most of the states passing felon disenfranchisement
> laws, I’d be interested in hearing if I’ve misunderstood or misremembered
> this situation.
>
>
>
> It would not surprise me at all to learn that in the post-Reconstruction
> era the Jim Crow Democrats had racist motives for continuing and expanding
> the reach of such laws. But the two points above suggest there isn’t much
> history to support the contention that the *origin* of felon
> disenfranchisement laws is rooted in racism.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Sean Parnell
>
> President
>
> Impact Policy Management, LLC
>
> 6411 Caleb Court
>
> Alexandria, VA  22315
>
> 571-289-1374 (c)
>
> sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
>
>
> “The Racist Origins of Felon Disenfranchisement”
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68485>
>
> Posted on November 18, 2014 8:55 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=68485>
> by *Rick Hasen* <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> Brent Staples
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/opinion/the-racist-origins-of-felon-disenfranchisement.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0>
>  NYT Editorial Observer column.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20141119/fd0e8410/attachment.html>