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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: 2) by number11 on Sunday February 04 2018, @06:00PM (1 child)
There's truth in that. Such subcultures include "asshole corporate shill" and "bankster thief". As Woodie Guthrie sang, "some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen." It may just be me, but I find the former more honorable (though scarier) than the latter. Of course if you want to be a monkey, you have to ape the higher-status ones.
It's interesting that among my younger (that is to say, born in the 1960s or later) relatives and acquaintances, piercings and tattoos have become the norm. These are mostly white, middle-class college grads. Me, I'm an old fart, I think that unless you can get proper coherent yazuka style tats, they just make you look like a bulletin board with random cartoons thumbtacked. But at least they don't make you look like a bankster defrauding people.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday February 04 2018, @08:52PM
Yes. And racists, jingoists, violent radicals, and so on.
The smart ones hide well. The others don't, and that makes them somewhat easier to avoid. And they should be avoided whenever possible. So paying attention to easily visible and currently present flags carried in by the individual to the interview process is one way to clear the decks of the obvious ones.
When someone interviews with me, they start fresh. But that doesn't mean they can't start badly.