Bill McCollum, Florida’s Attorney General, has written this oped, which begins: “The campaign to automatically restore civil rights to nearly all felons upon release from prison, with no waiting period and no hearing to determine if those felons will go right back to a life of crime, is reckless and irresponsible. States have enacted laws to take away certain rights of those who commit crimes, reasoning that a person who breaks the law should not make the law. As a matter of justice, respect for crime victims and public safety, Florida takes away the rights of convicted felons to vote, sit on a jury, or engage in a state-licensed occupation. Felons lose these rights unless Cabinet members, sitting as the Clemency Board, agree to restore them. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Florida’s law in 2005, finding it does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause or the Voting Rights Act. The federal court stated: ‘It is not racial discrimination that deprives felons, black or white, of their right to vote but their own decision to commit an act for which they assume the risks of detection and punishment’ (Johnson vs. Bush).”