A little shame now saves GOP in long run

MORGAN
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By LUCY MORGAN, Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief
Published July 3, 2004

Gov. Jeb Bush should write a thank-you note to Leon Circuit Judge Nikki Clark, but it's not likely he will think of that.

The judge just saved him from himself.

For several months Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Bush appointee, has been refusing to cough up a list of 47,000 suspected felons who are registered to vote. Despite pleas from virtually all of the state's news media as well as CNN, Hood declared the list off-limits.

It would seem Florida election officials could use all the help they can get from those willing to wade through 47,000 names, but the governor and his minions disagreed.

Let's keep it secret, they said, relying on an arcane law that made voter lists off-limits to the general public. Almost everyone else could get the list, but news organizations that might actually check its accuracy couldn't get it.

CNN sued. Clark declared the law unconstitutional and ordered the immediate release of the list. The ruling may temporarily embarrass Republicans, but it is far better to have egg on their faces in July than to have a close election turn on a flawed list in November.

This is the same judge who ruled against Democrats who challenged the outcome of the 2000 presidential election in one Florida county. Republicans tried to throw her off of the case before it was heard, lamely claiming she might hold it against them because Bush rejected her application for appointment to the 1st District Court of Appeal.

Clark clearly understood the implications of the situation last month when she heard arguments from Joe Klock, the Miami lawyer who represented the state.

She wanted to know if her name was on the list.

A similar law has been on the books for years, limiting access to the list of registered voters in Florida's 67 counties. No one had challenged it until Hood decided to apply an d version to the list of potential felons. Her decision never made much sense because the list of voters is clearly different from the list of would-be felons.

I suspect the entire reason for hiding the list was because everyone knew it was chock-full of errors and they wanted to fix it before everyone knew something was wrong and we repeated the 2000 election disaster.

This whole issue has become a flash point among many voters, especially Democrats.

Florida ought to follow the lead of most other states and automatically restore the voting rights of those who have been convicted of crimes once they have completed a sentence and probation.

But Bush and a Legislature controlled by his party have refused to pass bills that would put the issue on the ballot or make it easier to register.

The governor and Cabinet have taken some steps to make it easier for most felons to get their right to vote restored, but the process takes far too long and is far too complicated for the average citizen to wade through.

The list contains many Democrats and black voters, people likely to vote against Republicans. I suspect many of them would not have voted in the first place.

Republicans have simply played into the hands of the enemy by stubbornly refusing to rectify the situation.

Sometimes politicians are their own worst enemies.

Attorney General Charlie Crist was but an observer in this fight. His assistants kept a close eye on the courtroom battle, but stayed out of the fray. That left Hood and the governor out on the limb.

Perhaps it is a good thing the governor didn't appoint Clark to a higher court. She was in the right place at the right time to fix a problem before it got totally out of hand.