Opinion: Florida’s change to Amendment 4 is travesty and a transgression of the people’s will
By Cecile Scoon May 15 at 1:19 PM Cecile Scoon is a civil rights lawyer in Panama City, Fla., and first vice president of the League of Women Voters of Florida.
The vote in favor of Amendment 4 — 64.5 percent to 35.5 percent, out of nearly 8 million votes cast — reflected the work of organizations such as the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, the NAACP, churches, synagogues, mosques and many other civic organizations that worked to gather signatures. Petition signers, whether they wore Confederate flags on their T-shirts or expensive suits, told us that felony disenfranchisement affected all races and all economic and educational backgrounds.
On the day before the legislature adjourned last month, Florida’s lawmakers changed all that. They did away with the effect of civil judgments created by criminal judges. Under their interpretation of Amendment 4 and other proposed legislation, people who emerge from felony jail sentences with civil judgments will once again have to pay before their can vote again. Until those are settled, they cannot vote.
This is a travesty and a transgression of the people’s will. Lifetime disenfranchisement for former felons is a cruel and primitive punishment that ignores the fact that they have paid their debts to society and are once again taxpaying citizens with the rights and privileges that come with citizenship.
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