Arguing that state and local officials have created a “broken and arbitrary system,” plaintiffs are trying to fend off an attempt to end a lawsuit that challenges the way a 2018 constitutional amendment aimed at restoring felons’ voting rights has been carried out.
Attorneys for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and four individual plaintiffs last week filed a 61-page court document opposing a request by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, county clerks of court and elections supervisors to dismiss the lawsuit.
The 2018 constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 4, was designed to restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences. But the plaintiffs allege that the way state and local officials have carried it out has violated the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.
“Plaintiffs simply want defendants to abide by their federal constitutional and statutory responsibilities to assist them (plaintiffs) in determining their eligibility to vote in a uniform and non-arbitrary way, and to stop engaging in conduct that intimidates them and others for seeking to vote in the first place,” said the document filed last week in federal court in South Florida.
The case focuses heavily on part of a law that the Legislature passed in 2019 after the constitutional amendment was approved by voters. The law (SB 7066) requires felons to pay “legal financial obligations” — fees, fines and other court costs — associated with their convictions before they can be eligible to vote.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs contended in the document filed last week that state and local officials “cannot, or will not, tell people with prior felony convictions how much they must pay in legal financial obligations so that they may exercise the franchise” and have taken other steps, including arresting or threatening to arrest felons who have received voter-registration cards.
“(In) the five years since Amendment 4 was ratified, defendants have created and perpetuated a broken and arbitrary system, in which the actors charged with protecting plaintiffs’ federal rights disclaim responsibility, point fingers at other officials, and intimidate the very individuals Amendment 4 was intended to re-enfranchise,” the document said.
But in the motion to dismiss filed Oct. 30 and tweaked Nov. 3, attorneys for the state, clerks and elections supervisors said the plaintiffs were seeking an “unprecedented judicial takeover” of voter-registration procedures.
The attorneys also wrote that the “ultimate complaint is that it is sometimes difficult to determine whether a felon has completed the financial terms of a sentence.” But they said that doesn’t mean the process is unconstitutional.
“Florida’s voting restoration laws are of general application,” the motion said. “They permissively require voters — felons who are best positioned to know their sentences, perhaps in multiple cases and multiple jurisdictions — to comply with those laws through primarily their own efforts. They provide ‘more than adequate’ procedures to challenge ineligibility. Thus, as a matter of law, Florida’s SB 7066 procedures do not infringe upon plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the way Amendment 4 has been carried out violates the Voting Rights Act, violates equal-protection rights and places an unconstitutional “undue burden on the right to vote.”
The lawsuit, for example, also seeks an order requiring the establishment of a statewide database “that allows individuals with prior felony convictions to determine if they have outstanding LFOs (legal financial obligations); the amount of any outstanding LFOs; the jurisdiction to which they owe any outstanding LFOs; and where payment may be made to satisfy any outstanding LFOs.”
But in the motion to dismiss the case, attorneys for the state and the county officials raised a series of arguments, including contending that plaintiffs do not have legal standing and pointing to sovereign immunity. The motion said sovereign immunity limits the authority of federal courts in deciding issues related to state laws.
In the response filed last week, however, lawyers for the plaintiffs disputed such arguments. For instance, in addressing sovereign-immunity issues related to the state and elections supervisors, the lawyers wrote that the case “seeks to vindicate only federal constitutional and statutory rights, alleges only federal constitutional and statutory claims, and seeks only prospective injunctive relief against the defendants obligated to protect those federal rights.”
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Laurel says
The people of the State of Florida voted to give felons, who did their time, the right to vote again. There was nothing in that vote that required these people to pay fines of any kind. Disingenuous DeSantis ignored the people’s vote and added his own text. It’s certainly not the first time Disingenuous DeSantis has overruled the people’s vote, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
He is an embarrassment to anyone who has the capability to think for themselves, and admit they live here.
Skibum says
Unfortunately, this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, when the will of the voters at the ballot box has been disregarded, ignored, and corrupted by the FL governor, the idiot state attorney general, and the gerrymandered GOP legislature. They did the same thing after state voters passed a law to add more land to protect the state’s environmental areas. They successfully diluted that law by deliberately and falsely misrepresenting what the intent of that law was supposed to have been. They also tried mightily to ignore the will of the voters who voted to legalize medical marijuana, and delayed the implementation of that law for years and then slow walked giving out dispensary licenses as a way of trying to avoid implementing it, but that failed to stop the law. Now the AG, at Desantis’ urging I’m sure, is trying to get the state Supreme Court’s help in trying to make sure abortion rights are never ensconced into the state constitution even though it has a huge amount of support and is about to be placed on a statewide ballot for voters to approve.
The Geode says
Enough is ENOUGH! This is total bullshit. When I was released from prison 2 1/2 decades ago, the clemency board reached out to ME and told me that my voting rights were restored. I didn’t have to go out of my way or jump through hoops. Truth be told,, I wasn’t interested in “voting”, anyway. No matter WHO is in office, MY life will change too little to worry about. However, I will vote this time and cast a ballot for EVERY name with an “R” on it…
Pierre Tristam says
So you’ll vote for the very R’s pushing those hoops, glad to shut the door behind you.
Laurel says
Wonders never cease…
The Geode says
They won’t be shutting any doors behind ME. What makes you think that? Because it’s expected for people like ME to have doors shut behind them? When those doors were “shut behind me”, I DESERVED to have them shut behind me. That was much better than having a “revolving door” when I didn’t have any intentions to appreciate the freedoms I was given. Now imagine much worse criminals sauntering through those “revolving doors” because of people like you and the other “Pasty Liberal Whites” turning a blind eye, treating us like special need kids that doesn’t know any better. Then again, lowering the bar and allowing us to scrape through life is the exact ploy to destroy the black community with falsehoods, welfare, and dependency. We used to unitte and fight for opportunities, now you have convinced us to beg for entitlements and special treatment. No other race in this country can be led by the “Democratic machine” and count on 90% of the vote because they aren’t complacent with your “charity”.
That’s right, I WILL vote “R” across the board because I don’t need your pity, I don’t want your teat to suckle, I won’t be emotionally gaslighted and lead like a “ring-nosed bull”, and I don’t need anybody else thinking for me. I get in enough trouble on my own.
Any “door shut behind me” had MY hand-prints on the knob and I could have easily pushed it back open …but I didn’t
Pierre Tristam says
Geode, you should learn the difference between contempt and pity.
Laurel says
You know, this “pasty white liberal” can cry my whole lifetime on how unfair it was for me in a male dominated world, where I made less money and got less advancements…
…but I don’t want to.
I can admire Geode’s independence, but his obvious anger overrides that.
Sherry says
@geode. . . you seem so very angry and tormented. So angry in fact that apparently you go to extremes that just may be detrimental to yourself and to our democracy. Does that accomplish what you desire? Does that give you satisfaction in any way? Does that give you peace? Or, are you actually dishonoring your intentions and creating even more pain in your soul?