Ryan Koopmans: We didn’t have to wait long for the Supreme Court to decide its most important case of the term. Last Tuesday, the justices heard arguments over whether a second OWI offense is an “infamous crime” under the Iowa … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
Press release: U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) has introduced a bill, S. 2235, the Democracy Restoration Act that would reduce recidivism rates by restoring voting rights to individuals after they have served their time and have been released from incarceration. … Continue reading
AP: A former drug offender who believed her voting rights had been restored when she cast a ballot last year was acquitted of perjury Thursday, a public rebuke of Iowa’s two-year investigation into voter fraud. The 12-member jury took less … Continue reading
Project Vote release. … Continue reading
Kentucky.com reports. … Continue reading
Demos press release. … Continue reading
Oops. … Continue reading
WSJ oped: The U.S. attorney general told us that statistics can be read to show that felon disenfranchisement laws actually promote recidivism. He said that such laws, which vary from state to state, are rooted in outdated notions going back … Continue reading
Read. … Continue reading
NYT reports. MORE from HuffPo’s Ryan J. Reilly. … Continue reading
LA Times reports. … Continue reading
The Des Moines Register reports. … Continue reading
Here. … Continue reading
A Chapinblog. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Gov. Bob McDonnell today will announce that he is automatically restoring the voting rights of nonviolent felons on an individual basis. The sweeping administrative action – while not an instantaneous blanket restoration – is as far as the … Continue reading
WaPo: A Virginia committee announced options Tuesday for streamlining the restoration of former felons’ voting rights, including actions the governor and legislature could take now to advance the process. The possibilities, the committee said, include recruiting ex-felons who have not … Continue reading
Alec Ewald has written this Essay for the Yale Law Journal Online. Here is the abstract: This Essay replies to Richard Re and Christopher Re’s Voting and Vice. That article, recently published in The Yale Law Journal, demonstrates that the … Continue reading
News from Virginia. … Continue reading
State of Elections: “The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday granted the State’s summary judgment motion on substantive and procedural due process challenges to Virginia’s voter reinstatement process for convicted felons, as well as an Eight Amendment challenge to the … Continue reading
CBS DC reports. … Continue reading
According to a new Rasmussen poll. … Continue reading
News from Fla. … Continue reading
Press release: “Today, more than 200 civil rights, voting rights and criminal justice organizations sent a letter calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to seize a timely opportunity to research alternative ways to count incarcerated people in the decennial Census.” … Continue reading
Times Dispatch: “A House of Delegates subcommittee this morning effectively killed proposals to automatically restore the rights of nonviolent felons, something [Virginia] Gov. Bob McDonnell called for in his State of the Commonwealth address.” … Continue reading
Pam Karlan: “The consequences of adopting an essentially negative approach to political voice extend beyond enhanced protection for the political deployment of concentrated wealth and beyond new rules, such as voter ID requirements, that block full participation. The negative approach … Continue reading
The Advancement Project has issued this press release. … Continue reading
News from Virginia: “Gov. Bob McDonnell called for automatic restoration of civil rights for nonviolent felons during his annual State of the Commonwealth address Wednesday night, committing his prestige to a proposal that his own party has resisted for years.” … Continue reading
Color Lines reports. … Continue reading
John Ghaelian has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly). Here is the abstract: The right to vote is a right that many Americans cherish. But for over five million Americans the right to vote is something … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
The Nation reports. … Continue reading
Following up on this post, see Steven Rosenfeld’s thorough debunking. … Continue reading
Important WaPo oped from Peter Wagner: ” Sandwiched between its controversial immigration, campaign finance and health-carerulings last month, the Supreme Court issued a little-noticed decision in a Maryland case that gave the green light to states to eliminate the repugnant … Continue reading
Tampa Tribune: “Nearly one-fourth of black Florida adults, and one-tenth of the state’s total voting-age population, aren’t allowed to vote because of the state’s prohibition on voting by former felons, the nation’s highest rate of disenfranchisement, according to a study … Continue reading
MSNBC Lean Forward’s perspective on Iowa’s process for restoring felon voting rights. … Continue reading
The AP reports that fewer than twelve of the over 8000 felons released have regained their right to vote, since the state’s automatic reenfranchisement policy was reversed last year by Gov. Branstad. According to the story, reenfranchisement now requires a full credit report (not just a summary), a criminal history … Continue reading
The summary disposition in Fletcher v. Lamone affirms a three-judge district court ruling upholding the state’s “No Representation Without Population Act,” which requires that, for redistricting purposes, prisoners be counted at their legal home addresses rather than where they’re incarcerated. Demos’ press … Continue reading
News from Florida (via Dan Smith). … Continue reading
African Elections in 2012 on the World Stage and in the Classroom and Viewpoint, Voting, and Structuring the Electorate. … Continue reading
Janai Nelson has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article engages the equality principles of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause to reconsider the constitutionality of one of the last and most entrenched barriers … Continue reading
Prisoners of the Census: “New Yorkers enjoyed a clear victory today, as plaintiffs in the Little v. LATFOR case dropped their challenge of the state law ending prison-based gerrymandering. The law, known as Part XX, was passed in 2010 to … Continue reading
A ChapinBlog. … Continue reading
Richard Re and Christopher Re have posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Yale Law Journal). Here is the abstract: The Reconstruction Amendments are justly celebrated for transforming millions of recent slaves into voting citizens. Yet this legacy of egalitarian enfranchisement … Continue reading
Pippa Holloway has posted this draft on SSRN (chapter in FREEDOM RIGHTS: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, p. 277, D. McGuire and J. Dittmer, eds., University Press of Kentucky, 2011). Here is the abstract: This essay considers court … Continue reading
Interesting. There aren’t too many issues where Romney can run to the right of Santorum. … Continue reading
Jessie Allen has posted this draft on SSRN (Tulane Law Review). In the generally accepted picture of criminal disenfranchisement in the United States today, permanent voting bans are rare. Laws on the books in most states now provide that people … Continue reading
H. David Schuringa has written this oped for the CS Monitor. … Continue reading
NYT editorial: “A Federal District Court late last month wisely upheld a 2010 Maryland law that counts prison inmates as residents in their home communities for purposes of redistricting, rather than at the prisons where they are incarcerated.” … Continue reading