Before the election of 2018, there were only four states with laws on the books that disenfranchised most all ex-felons from voting (according to The Sentencing Project). We know Florida was one of them, but it appeared in November that the voters in that state (who were allowed to vote) had overwhelmingly voted to amend the Florida Constitution to restore voting rights for approximately 1.4 million ex-felons in Florida. When the margin is 30 points (65 for/35 against) in a state most notoriously split 50/50 along partisan lines, then it’s fair to say that the public has issued a mandate. Such great result! Way to go democracy! Right?
‘Not so fast’, say Florida republicans. Republicans in the Florida legislature have passed a bill to require all ex-felons to pay all fees assessed as part of their conviction before they can vote, including restitution, court costs, etc. The Republican Governor has said he will sign the bill. These fees may amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars, and of course it is ridiculous to expect folks getting out of jail after a year or more will have the means to pay those fees, plus re-enter life, support themselves, support families…..The de-facto result, which is exactly the result Republicans want, is that hundreds of thousands of citizens of that state will still be disenfranchised, even though they have served their time, unless they pay money. Obvious parallels to racist poll taxes from our country’s and that state’s ignominious past be damned, the fact that the law will disenfranchise African-Americans at proportionally greater rates be damned, the will of the people of the State be damned — true democracy appears to be bad for Republican business and the tribe, and so the poll fees are going to be levied.
Undoubtedly, there will be legal challenges to this racist and undemocratic law — but I’m skeptical because it seems to me unlikely that the courts would be able to act fast enough to strike the law and clear voting rights by November 2020, plus I wouldn’t count on either the Florida or U.S. Supreme Court to do the right thing (in fact, as this New Yorker article discusses, the Amendment passed by the Florida voters is arguably less than clear about restitution and fines, and it ain’t all likely that courts are going to insert themselves in decisive ways when the constitutional amendment itself is vague).
So what if some Democratic billionaires stepped up and offered to help pay these fees so that ex-felons can vote? Michael Bloomberg — I’m looking at you, you rich-as-fuck mofo with an apparently decent heart! Tom Steyer, George Soros, Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, Bezos. All of you — what do you say? Howard Shulz, how about a couple billion bucks (and a promise to stop running for president) to get yourself out of the Democratic doghouse? All of you can pony up as far as i’m concerned!
If you do the math (hundreds of thousands of ex-felons each owe hundreds or thousands in fees and fines), the amount of money we’re talking about seems pretty staggering. So what i’m thinking is something like a $5 billion (or so) fund and and organization that gets set up and immediately starts dispensing money to clear individual balance sheets and in so doing restore voting rights on a person-by-person basis. There would be a way to contact this organization to apply for assistance in paying the fee — and at the same time the organization would assist the individual in registering to vote. I expect that when they vote, those voters will remember which party wanted to keep them disenfranchised even after the public had spoken.
I’m not a billionaire so this proposal is modestly made for others. But why not you democratic billionaires out there? You would be doing a great thing for the country and yourself — helping democracy and burnishing your own legacy. What say?