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Ex-Felons and Voting Rights: Democracy
by Marc Morial
Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, is the former two-term Mayor of New Orleans, former President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and author of To Be EQUAL. He is a Columnist for MaximsNews.
Available for Media Interviews: Please see All of Marc Morial's MaximsNews columns below.*
UNITED NATIONS - 24 June 2005 / www.MaximsNews.com
/ Two developments this month concerning the
impact of incarceration in American society — one in
Iowa, the other concerning New York City — have both
underscored the steady, if still far too slow
turning of the wheel away America’s foolish
addiction to incarceration, and the great need for
more and faster progress. In Iowa, Governor Tom Vilsack announced
he’ll issue an executive order that will restore
voting rights to all Iowans who’ve been convicted
of a felony and have completed their sentences. “When you’ve paid your debt to society, you need to be re-connected and re-engaged to society,” the Governor said 17 June. “The right to vote is the foundation of our
government and serves as a symbol of opportunity for
our citizens.” The policy, which Gov. Vilsack said he’ll
sign, appropriately, on July 4th, transforms one of
the nation’s most restrictive felony
disenfranchisement laws, making an estimated 80,000
ex-felons in the state eligible to vote. Iowa follows its Plains neighbor, Nebraska, as states which this year significantly transformed their voting rights policy for ex-felons. Nebraska repealed its law imposing a lifetime
voting ban on ex-felons, replacing it with a
two-year waiting period after release before voting
rights are restored.
Thus, both join the move toward easing restrictions of state laws throughout the country which, by continuing to deprive those convicted of crimes of their right to vote once they’ve been released from incarceration in fact violates two fundamental notions of American society: The right to vote, the basic building-block of citizenship in a democracy; and the idea that
once a person convicted of a crime has served their
sentence, they have paid their debt to society. Iowa’s action leaves four states — Alabama, Kentucky, Florida and Virginia — as the only states in the country which bar anyone convicted of a felony or aggravated misdemeanor from ever voting. Laws in the nation’s other states differ in
how and when they allow ex-felons to vote again. This
reform effort must be encouraged, for barring
ex-felons from voting is counter-productive for both
the individual and the society as a whole:
studies show that ex-offenders who vote are
less likely to re-commit crimes. Given
the hugely disproportionate number of African- and
Latino-Americans who are incarcerated, there is, not
surprisingly, a stunning and worrisome racial
element to the felony disenfranchisement issue, too.
Nationally, of the 4.7 million people ineligible to vote because of felony convictions, 1.4 million are black men. In Iowa, where blacks constitute just two
percent of the total population, blacks make up 19
percent of ex-felons who were denied the right to
vote. Similar disparities can be found in most
states. The second incarceration-related development
that occurred recently is equally important:
a study of the job prospects in New York City
for ex-offenders which found that white men with
prison records fared far better in getting job
offers than black men with prison records — and even
than black men who had never been arrested.
The study, undertaken earlier this year used “testers” who were equipped with similar resumes and trained to display to prospective employers similar personalities and interpersonal skills, and the same drug offense which had gotten them an 18-month prison sentence. The jobs they pursued ranged across a
spectrum, including deli clerks, cashiers, couriers
and telemarketers. Yet, according to the study’s authors, professors Bruce Western, and Devah Pager, of Princeton University, black men whose job applications indicated a prison term were only one-third as likely as white men similarly situated to get positive responses. For every 10 white men without convictions who got at least a callback, 7 white men with convictions also did. However, for every 10 black men without
criminal records who got callbacks, only 3 with them
did, Martin F. Horn, the New York City’s corrections commissioner, and Patricia L. Gatling, chairwoman of the city’s Commission on Human Rights, described the report as a call for action. Ms. Gatling said her office intends to work
with employers who’ve hired ex-offenders in order
to fashion efforts to eliminate the racial
opportunity gap. These two developments underscore the imperative that has led the National Urban League to plan for a national commission examining the successes and challenges facing black boys and men. Our commission will be a five-year effort
that will recommend solutions to the problems
afflicting black men in numerous areas, including
health, education, employment, civil rights and
civic engagement. But a primary area of concentration will, of
course, be black males’ negative involvement with
the criminal justice system (while not ignoring the
fact that the negative involvement of women,
particularly black women, has become increasingly
more serious as well) and the extraordinary burden
that imposes on African-American families and
communities. That burden
— and the issue of felony
disenfranchisement itself — is but the most dramatic
evidence we have that we ignore the need to
substantively help ex-offenders go straight at their
peril — and ours.
*Marc Morial's Columns in MaximsNews
Ex-Felons and Voting Rights... 24 June 2005 Vicente Fox's Foolish Words 24 May 2005 Reject the Nuclear Option 11 May 2005 Kenneth B. Clark 4 May 2005 The State of Black America 11 April 2005 The Main Event in American History 16 February 2005 Never again! 1 February 2005 Jack Johnson, American 27 January 2005 The Mississippi Arrest: Bending Toward Justice... 11 January 2005 Reforming America's Obsession with Incarceration... 7 December 2004 A Pre-Election Snapshot of Black America... 26 October 2004 Issues for the Candidates -- and for Us... 19 October 2004 The "Routine" Tragedy in the Sudan... 2 September 2004 A Wonderful Life... 26 August 2004 America, We Have A Problem... 19 August 2004 Looking Forward; Leaving No One Behind... 28 July 2004 Empowering Communities, Changing Lives... 8 July 2004 July: The Other Black History Month... 30 June 2004 Justice for History's Sake—and Our Own... 24 June 2004 Let America Be America The Beautiful... 16 June 2004 Quiet Activism on The Movement's Front Lines... 8 June 2004 Vernon
Jarrett, Dreamer and Doer Buddy Fletcher's Gift... 26 May 2004 The Murder of Emmett Till: Still Seeking Justice... 20 May 2004 The Meaning of the Brown Decision... 12 May 2004 The Complexity of Black Achievement... 4 May 2004 USA Today's Con Artist... 27 April 2004 The
"Moving Target" of Black Educational
Progress Elaine Jones: Energized by Adversity... 6 April 2004 The Urban League in Washington: Bringing Reinforcements... 30 March 2004 The Pain of Those Left Behind... 17 March 2004 Deeply Desiring Denial... 9 March 2004 One Step Forward; Two Steps Back... 3 March 2004 Innocent of the Crime, But Almost Executed Anyway... 24 February 2004 Civil Rights: America's Unfinished Business... 17 February 2004 What Will They Do Now? 2 February 2004
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