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Ag. Commissioner Asks Governor To Drop Amendment 4 Appeal, Reform Clemency Board
Ag. Commissioner Asks Governor To Drop Amendment 4 Appeal, Reform Clemency Board
By BRENDAN RIVERS • JUN 11, 2020
Originally published on June 11, 2020 2:22 pm
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis to drop his appeal of a recent court ruling regarding Amendment 4, which restores the voting rights of millions of ex-felons in Florida, and to reform the state’s controversial Clemency Board, the statewide body that decides whether felons can have their rights restored.
“I'm asking for the clemency board to do what is right, which is conscionable with empathy, and that is to redo our clemency rules and to have an automatic restoration of rights once you have left the system and you are no longer in prison or jail,” Fried, a Democrat, said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday. “It is way overdue and these are just small steps that we can be taking to finally bring justice to our state.”
Amendment 4 overturned a 150-year-old law that permanently disenfranchised people with felony convictions - effectively restoring the right to vote for about 1.7 million Floridians, many of them African American. According to ProCon.org, more than one in five black Floridians are disenfranchised. But seven months after the constitutional amendment was overwhelmingly approved by Florida voters in 2018, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill limiting re-enfranchisement to only those who have paid all of their court-related debts, saying the law was needed to clarify the amendment.
That law, which critics said amounted to a “poll tax,” triggered a lawsuit, in which the plaintiffs argued that the requirement to pay all fines and fees effectively creates a lifetime sentence for crimes that ex-felons have tried to leave in the past.
[...]
By BRENDAN RIVERS • JUN 11, 2020
Originally published on June 11, 2020 2:22 pm
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis to drop his appeal of a recent court ruling regarding Amendment 4, which restores the voting rights of millions of ex-felons in Florida, and to reform the state’s controversial Clemency Board, the statewide body that decides whether felons can have their rights restored.
“I'm asking for the clemency board to do what is right, which is conscionable with empathy, and that is to redo our clemency rules and to have an automatic restoration of rights once you have left the system and you are no longer in prison or jail,” Fried, a Democrat, said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday. “It is way overdue and these are just small steps that we can be taking to finally bring justice to our state.”
Amendment 4 overturned a 150-year-old law that permanently disenfranchised people with felony convictions - effectively restoring the right to vote for about 1.7 million Floridians, many of them African American. According to ProCon.org, more than one in five black Floridians are disenfranchised. But seven months after the constitutional amendment was overwhelmingly approved by Florida voters in 2018, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill limiting re-enfranchisement to only those who have paid all of their court-related debts, saying the law was needed to clarify the amendment.
That law, which critics said amounted to a “poll tax,” triggered a lawsuit, in which the plaintiffs argued that the requirement to pay all fines and fees effectively creates a lifetime sentence for crimes that ex-felons have tried to leave in the past.
[...]
