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U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has ruled that Florida's system for restoration of voting and other civil rights to convicted felons is unconstitutional. Florida is likely to appeal the ruling:
A federal judge has declared unconstitutional Florida's procedure for restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time. In a strongly worded ruling seen as a rebuke of Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who is the lead defendant in the case, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said the disenfranchisement of felons who have served their time is "nonsensical" and a violation of the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Although nearly every state bars incarcerated criminals from voting, only Florida and three others — Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia — do not automatically restore voting rights at the completion of a criminal sentence.
Walker, an Obama administration appointee, decried the state's requirement that someone with a felony conviction must "kowtow" to a partisan panel, the Office of Executive Clemency, "over which Florida's governor has absolute veto authority" to regain their right to vote. "[Elected], partisan officials have extraordinary authority to grant or withhold the right to vote from hundreds of thousands of people without any constraints, guidelines, or standards," the judge said. [...] The judge cited one clemency hearing where Scott announced the panel "can do whatever we want" as evidence of its arbitrary nature.
Last month, Floridians for a Fair Democracy reached the signature threshold needed to get a constitutional amendment onto the 2018 ballot that would end the disenfranchisement of 1.5 million Floridians with past felony convictions.
Also at the Miami Herald and Orlando Sentinel:
Walker blasted Florida's process at length, writing that it makes felons "kowtow" to a board that can accept or deny their application for any reason. "A person convicted of a crime may have long ago exited the prison cell and completed probation. Her voting rights, however, remain locked in a dark crypt," Walker wrote. "Only the state has the key — but the state has swallowed it. Only when the state has digested and passed that key in the unforeseeable future, maybe in five years, maybe in 50, ... does the state, in an 'act of mercy' unlock the former felon's voting rights from its hiding place."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday February 04 2018, @06:44AM (8 children)
Damn right! So right now I am patrolling for Nazis willing to take personal responsibility for the Holocaust. If I find one that admits it, the forehead treatment should suffice. If they do not accept responsibility, and still keep spouting this "White Identity" and "Proud Boy" shit, I will have to give them a lesson in what it is like to have people who wish harm upon you only because of who you are. Only, in their case, they don't have to be, it is is choice. A stupid, racist, and ugly choice, but, hey, personal responsibility! Not like being a fuctard white supremacist is that same a being black or gay, or female, or ambidexterous. Just saying.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @10:39AM (7 children)
If it is OK to have black pride and black churches and a special month for black people, then it is OK to have all those things for white people. (likewise, if one is not OK then the other is not OK)
Evidently you disagree. This makes you a racist.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bobs on Sunday February 04 2018, @12:26PM (5 children)
The government / system in the USA spent ove 200 years telling black people they are lesser people, sub-human. People living today were part of the system where all that was legal.
Seems like a relatively minor thing to then spend a bit of time staying ‘non-white people are good, too.’
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @12:35PM (4 children)
Not to forget shipped millions of negro slaves over in the first place.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @03:52PM (2 children)
Where would their descendants be if slavery never happened? Worse off? A question that I haven't seen asked yet... So not being racist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @06:35PM
Yeah! White powder, bro! If only my ancestors had be kidnapped, beaten, packed in to ships where 30% fatalities were acceptable, and then treated as property for generations! We would be so much better off! But instead, they had sclep accross the Atlantic on their own, could go where they wanted, take land away from the indigenous people, get an education, vote, and build up capital and privilege for future generations! So unfair!
But the worse thing, the most unjust and unfair thing of all, is that my ancestors, and unfortunately myself as well, were assimilated into this thing called "white", something that only existed because it was not Negro or Injun. They, after a while, anyway, threw my ancestors in with friggin' Germans, for god's sake, and racist Brits! If only my ancestors has been slaved, we would not have to put up with the indignity of being identified with the people who slaved other people, on the basis of race. It's so embarrassing.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday February 05 2018, @03:31AM
Yes, you're being racist. That's the classic expression of the racist ideology that was historically used to justify slavery. The slightly longer version of the same argument that was common from around 1500 to around 1900:
And yes, the people who ended up on slave ships would in fact have been much better off had they been able to stay in Africa. For starters, 1/5 or so of them who boarded the boat didn't make it off the boat. And if they were part of the majority of slaves who went to the Caribbean and Brazil, something like 1/3 of new arrivals didn't survive 10 years of slavery there. Now, that does mean the slaves in the USA were probably better off than the slaves elsewhere in the Americas, but that doesn't mean that it was good to be a slave.
So why did you think they might have been better off in the Americas than in Africa? Well, because things suck in Africa now. But the reasons things suck in Africa now have very little to do with mistakes by Africans and a lot to do with the Europeans barging in and taking over pretty much all of Africa by force. And Europeans still largely own most of the mineral wealth of Africa, so most of the money from gold mining, oil drilling, diamonds, etc is not going to Africans.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @05:15PM
Yeah and let's not forget the assholes that rounded up the slaves and sold them (or just traded for guns and amo) to the slave ports in the first place! Those were the real White Supremacists!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:33AM
I am not aware of a church in the U.S. that won;t let you in if you're not black. You might be the only non-black person there, but they'll let you in.
They have black history month because the rest of the time we learn the history of white people. We could have a white history month, but other than a few banners it wouldn't be distinguishable from any other month in school.