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News & ArtsTuesday, January 12, 2010
News State AG Files to Block Felon Voting Rights
Posted by Dominic Holden on Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 5:24 PM
State Attorney General Rob McKenna filed a motion today asking a federal court to temporarily suspend its recent ruling to let felons vote. (We've written about this case here.) During the three-month stay, McKenna plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. "The motion to stay the issuance of the mandate is not filed merely for delay," McKenna wrote to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "As the majority opinion acknowledges, there is a conflict between the decision in this case and the decisions of three other circuits that have held that the Voting Rights Act does not apply to state felon disenfranchisement laws.”
3
I guess i don't get what the big deal about letting felons vote is, its not like someone who is about to commit a crime says to themselves "I'm gonna rob this bank, but then again if I'm caught I could lose my right to vote.... maybe I wont do it".
4
@1-Not really, but we should anyway
@2-No. Because he's doing the right thing.
@3-Taking away the right to vote isn't meant to be a deterrent. It's about people losing the privilege of having a say in what the laws are and who the law-makers are if they won't uphold the laws. There's no way this stupid ruling should be upheld and McKenna is right to fight it. It's why he's the AG. It's his job.
@2-No. Because he's doing the right thing.
@3-Taking away the right to vote isn't meant to be a deterrent. It's about people losing the privilege of having a say in what the laws are and who the law-makers are if they won't uphold the laws. There's no way this stupid ruling should be upheld and McKenna is right to fight it. It's why he's the AG. It's his job.
7
The AG is required, by law, to defend the laws of the State of Washington. Implying that this is some kind of partisan or political decision to appeal is really dishonest. If Governor Gregoire were still the AG, I can guarantee you she would have done the same thing.
8
Voting from prison is an expensive and logistical nightmare when most of these people have chosen not to vote prior to their convictions. They are also a captive audience for any candidate, especially an incumbent who can get inside easier. A few well placed felons could deliver a potential Governor hundreds or even thousands of votes who might then get favorable consideration for clemency by said candidate.
Gregoire v. Rossi could have swung on that although no law-and-order republican would be caught dead pandering to incarcerated felons so, another point, that set of voters would be disproportionately offered up to liberal candidates.
Those are just a few of the simple things you seem to be missing.
Also, if you can't follow by society's most serious crimes why on earth should you get to try to turn things in your favor?
Vote as you will on when to restore a felon's right to vote but across the country the other US Circuit Courts have held that imprisoned felons DO NOT have the right to vote. Why should this be different on the left coast?
Gregoire v. Rossi could have swung on that although no law-and-order republican would be caught dead pandering to incarcerated felons so, another point, that set of voters would be disproportionately offered up to liberal candidates.
Those are just a few of the simple things you seem to be missing.
Also, if you can't follow by society's most serious crimes why on earth should you get to try to turn things in your favor?
Vote as you will on when to restore a felon's right to vote but across the country the other US Circuit Courts have held that imprisoned felons DO NOT have the right to vote. Why should this be different on the left coast?
9
@3 & 4: ya'll should really go and read the decision. This decision was not based on the issue of felon disenfranchisement per se.
At issue here is the question of equal enforcement. Under the constitution (that pesky document again), laws must be enforced equally. If it can be shown that a certain group is being arrested and/or prosecuted and/or convicted in a disproportionate manner, that raises the question of selective enforcement.
The plaintiffs argued that selective enforcement resulted in far more people of color becoming felons and thus losing their right to vote. They prevailed in convincing the court that racial disproportionality in Washington State arrests/prosecutions/convictions is not due to disproportionate participation in criminal acts. The State could not counter those claims -- they could not show that minorities (blacks in particular) participate in crimes more than whites. In fact, they could provide no credible explanation and thus they lost.
And -- for all of the racists out there -- this is just another example of why you cannot use arrest/prosecution/conviction data to argue that blacks commit more crimes than whites. Those data are fundamentally suspect. They are the result of unequal application of the law.
What you need are data that look at criminal involvement. This is easiest to do with drug use, where there is abundant evidence that drug use is pretty evenly distributed across racial groups (about the same percentages of whites and blacks use illegal drugs). So if a disproportionate number of blacks are arrested/prosecuted/convicted for drug crimes (as is the case in Seattle and Washington) then that tells you something is going wrong.
The Court accepted this argument. It will be up the State it counter it on appeal. They should lose. This is a landmark decision and we should be proud of it.
The war on drugs is a new Jim Crow. If we enforced drug laws equally in this country (that is, if we arrested whites for their drug use at the same rate we arrest people of color) the war on drugs would have ended three days after it started.
More...
At issue here is the question of equal enforcement. Under the constitution (that pesky document again), laws must be enforced equally. If it can be shown that a certain group is being arrested and/or prosecuted and/or convicted in a disproportionate manner, that raises the question of selective enforcement.
The plaintiffs argued that selective enforcement resulted in far more people of color becoming felons and thus losing their right to vote. They prevailed in convincing the court that racial disproportionality in Washington State arrests/prosecutions/convictions is not due to disproportionate participation in criminal acts. The State could not counter those claims -- they could not show that minorities (blacks in particular) participate in crimes more than whites. In fact, they could provide no credible explanation and thus they lost.
And -- for all of the racists out there -- this is just another example of why you cannot use arrest/prosecution/conviction data to argue that blacks commit more crimes than whites. Those data are fundamentally suspect. They are the result of unequal application of the law.
What you need are data that look at criminal involvement. This is easiest to do with drug use, where there is abundant evidence that drug use is pretty evenly distributed across racial groups (about the same percentages of whites and blacks use illegal drugs). So if a disproportionate number of blacks are arrested/prosecuted/convicted for drug crimes (as is the case in Seattle and Washington) then that tells you something is going wrong.
The Court accepted this argument. It will be up the State it counter it on appeal. They should lose. This is a landmark decision and we should be proud of it.
The war on drugs is a new Jim Crow. If we enforced drug laws equally in this country (that is, if we arrested whites for their drug use at the same rate we arrest people of color) the war on drugs would have ended three days after it started.
10
@8 Are you the token Palin-level commentator here? There are so many things egregiously wrong with your statement that I don't even know where to begin! We're all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. You should reconcile yours.
11
Thats right keep treating people in prison like second class citizens and animals. That will really inspire them to try and straighten up and fly right when they are released. The majority of felons now are for drug charges not violent crimes. Should we deny the right to vote to some one with cancer? A Lot can be learned about a country by looking at the way they treat their inmates .If we wnat these people to turn their lives around when released we need to treat them like you would want your own family treated .I am not saying give them any thing extra but they should not be denied what any of us have after they have served their time.As for voting while still in prison or jail they should have this right it's not like we can say we do not have innocent people in our prisons every day there are more and more stories about peopel serving decade long prison terms and then being released because they had the wrong perosn.Voting is not a privledge its a right and one that all should have felon or not.
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