When Republicans Don't Like What The Voters Decide...

I was shocked when the Florida Republican Party seemed so calm when Amendment 4 passed in November. It's going to probably mean a million new voters, many of then not especially GOP-friendly. Florida was one of only 4 states, the others being Kentucky, Iowa and Virginia, where convicted felons do not regain the right to vote after serving out their sentences. Amendment 4 was designed to automatically restore the right to vote for people with prior felony convictions-- other than convicted murderers or those who committed felony sexual offenses-- on completion of their sentences, including prison, parole, and probation. The victory for Amendment 4 was massive-- 64.55% to 35.45%. Compare that to Rick Scott's win in the Senate race (50.1-49.9%) or Ron DeSantis' win for governor (49.6-49.2%). 5,148,926 people voted to allow felons to regain their right to vote, over a million more people than those who voted for Scott and DeSantis (who both opposed the amendment). The potential to change politics in Florida is enormous. It seems like Republican politicians woke up to that after the vote sand are now moving against what they call "implementation," although the amendment seems clear enough that no actual implementation is needed.

Mitch Perry's essay for the Florida Phoenix, Key lawmakers now saying they may need to interpret what voters meant in approving Amendment 4 to restore felon voting rights is another demonstration of the Republican Party's assault on democracy. He wrote that there is growing growing concern that the Republican-dominated state legislature is finding ways to "slow-walk" the process, although I don't exactly understand why there even is "a process," since the amendment should just kick in automatically next month; end of story.

The central question is: Does Amendment 4 automatically kick-in next month, or will the Legislature need to get involved? The right wing nutcase Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, is questioning whether the state’s 67 county Supervisors of Election can go ahead and start registering felons to vote without an edict from the state legislature.

“It would be inappropriate for us to charge off without direction from them,” Detzner told reporters in Sarasota last week.

St. Petersburg Republican state Sen. and committee chair Jeff Brandes said he agreed that the law does begin on January 8, but added that there remain a number of questions that need to be resolved... Several elections supervisors complained last week that the Secretary of State’s office has given them no guidance at all on how to implement the initiative.

Yesterday, Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo told the media that "Floridians have spoken and overwhelmingly voted to restore voting rights for felons. Ron DeSantis and Republicans don’t get to decide whether to implement what is now law-- they must fulfill the will of the people. This is another act of voter suppression by Republicans who want to pick and choose who should have the right to vote."

The first I ever heard of this initiative was several years ago, when Alan Grayson told me it was one of the most important things he was working on. Today he told me that "Before this amendment passed, more than a quarter of all Florida African-American men couldn’t vote.  You can always count on Florida Republicans to do their best to keep African-Americans from voting. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Republicans gotta bigot." Earlier he had said that there may be litigation over what the phrase "all terms of their sentence including parole or probation" means "but that’s for the courts to decide, not the legislature. There is nothing for the Legislature to do; the amendment is self-executing."