Appeals court says state should help felons regain civil rights

By John Kennedy
Tallahassee Bureau 
 
TALLAHASSEE · In another voting-related setback for Gov. Jeb Bush's administration, an appeals court ruled Wednesday that state officials are failing to help thousands of newly released felons get their civil rights restored.

The decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal is a victory for the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators, which had sued prison officials for doing little to guide outgoing prisoners and not even distributing a one-page civil-rights application, as required by state law.

"This has hurt hundreds of thousands of felons across the state," said lead counsel Randall Berg. "The state of Florida really must revisit these racist and oppressive policies that disenfranchise people."

The decision comes days after state elections officials abandoned an error-plagued list of almost 48,000 "potential felons" distributed to elections supervisors for possible purging from voter rolls.

The list, which had cost nearly $2 million to prepare and defend in lawsuits, was ruled fatally flawed by Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood after an analysis by media organizations revealed that it largely shielded Hispanic felons from risk of removal.

The voter list, concerns about new touch-screen voting machines, and Wednesday's court ruling have combined to create a politically charged cloud over battleground Florida, which the governor's brother, President Bush, won by 537 votes in 2000 following a 36-day legal deadlock.

With polls showing the Republican president and Democrat John Kerry running neck-and-neck in the state, Florida's election system is again emerging as an intriguing subplot.

The appellate decision says state corrections officials must "provide the offenders with an application and any other forms necessary to obtain the governor's review for restoration of civil rights."

Florida is among a half-dozen states that do not automatically restore civil rights to felons who complete their sentences. The "potential felon" voter list was scrapped last week after state officials saw the political liability of trying to defend a list that left off names of Hispanics, who vote overwhelmingly Republican in Florida.

By contrast, roughly half of the estimated 400,000 felons who served their sentences and remain barred from voting in Florida are black, a constituency decidedly Democratic-leaning. Democrats have pushed to have this voting bloc added to the rolls.

Following the ruling, Gov. Jeb Bush said he stood by the state's strict standard for restoring civil rights, adding that his administration already has done much to ease the process.

Felons who complete their sentences now have their names submitted directly to state clemency officials, with applications then later sent by mail to the roughly 85 percent who need their cases reviewed in Tallahassee by Bush and the Clemency Board.

"We have streamlined the system," Bush said.

"We have gotten very little credit for it. But we have had good results."

The lawsuit by black legislators already led to an earlier ruling by a Tallahassee judge, who ordered the state last year to help 124,769 felons released between 1992 and 2001, after determining that the state failed to inform them how to seek restoration of their civil rights.

Last month, Gov. Bush said that more than 20,000 felons were eligible to cast ballots in the November election because they had their civil rights restored during the past year.

Berg and other advocates, though, said the missteps involving the felon-voting process gave impetus to calls for automatic restoration of civil rights to felons.

Former Gov. Reubin Askew took a similar step in 1975, enacting a policy that lasted three years.

"If it was a priority of the governor, believe me, it could change," said Rep. Ed Jennings, a Gainesville Democrat who leads the black conference.

Bush, however, said he had no such plans.

"I am not going to, by edict, change the rules that are part of our constitution," he said.