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Florida high court sides with governor on felon voter rights

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:37:56 -0500

Siding with Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Supreme Court decided Thursday that a state law requiring payment of “legal financial obligations” properly carried out a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences.

DeSantis asked the court for what is known as an “advisory opinion” in the midst of a federal lawsuit challenging the law, which was approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by the governor last spring.

The amendment’s “use of the broad phrase ‘all terms of sentence’ can only reasonably be understood to similarly encompass ‘the ultimate sanctions imposed,’ including ‘costs.’ Or in the words of the sponsor’s counsel, the phrase encompasses ‘all obligations’ or ‘all matters,’ ” the court decided Thursday.

More than 71 percent of Floridians supported what appeared on the November 2018 ballot as Amendment 4, which granted voting-rights restoration to felons “who have completed all terms of their sentence, including parole or probation,” excluding people “convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense.”

But the meaning of “all terms of their sentence” became a contentious sticking point for the Legislature as it crafted a law to carry out the amendment.

Lawmakers finally settled on a measure requiring felons to pay “legal financial obligations,” such as restitution, fines and fees, to be eligible to have voting rights restored.

But voting-rights groups and civil-rights advocates quickly filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state law, arguing in part that linking voting rights and financial obligations amounts to an unconstitutional “poll tax.”

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in October ruled that Florida cannot deny the right to vote to felons who have served their sentences but are “genuinely unable” to pay legal financial obligations. DeSantis’ administration has appealed that ruling.

Thursday’s Florida Supreme Court opinion siding with the governor, widely expected by court watchers, came as the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prepares to hear arguments Jan. 28 in the separate federal lawsuit.

The state court rejected arguments by some proponents of the measure that “all terms of sentence” refers only to periods of confinement in jail or prison. The opinion said the amendment also includes legal financial obligations, or “LFOs.”

“We conclude that the phrase, when read and understood in context, plainly refers to obligations and includes ‘all’ --- not some --- LFOs imposed in conjunction with an adjudication of guilt,” justices wrote.

But plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit lambasted the Florida court’s ruling.

“We think, of course, it’s wrong, that the language in and of itself should be restricted to everything associated with a sentence except for the LFOs, and we are emphasizing that this is an unconstitutional poll tax or an unconstitutional form of wealth-based discrimination,” Southern Poverty Law Center deputy legal director Nancy Abudu told The News Service of Florida in a telephone interview Thursday.

In arriving at their decision, justices said they relied in part on arguments made by proponents of the constitutional amendment when seeking Florida Supreme Court approval to get the measure on the 2018 ballot.

The drafters of the amendment wrote at the time that they “intend that individuals with felony convictions, excluding those convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense, will automatically regain their right to vote upon fulfillment of all obligations imposed under their criminal sentence,” Thursday’s opinion said.

“In other words, the sponsor intended that ‘all terms’ refer to obligations, not durational periods,” the opinion reads.

Jon Mills, a former state House speaker and onetime dean of the University of Florida law school, told the court at the time that the “operative language in Amendment 4 ‘means all matters --- anything that a judge puts into a sentence,’ ” the court noted Thursday.

Sponsors of the amendment also disseminated similar messages on their website and in other ways. The court, however, did not rely on those statements, but on the “ordinary meaning that would have been understood by the voters,” according to the opinion.

A “glaring problem” with the arguments advanced by proponents of the amendment “is that their preferred reading of Amendment 4 effectively renders superfluous the words ‘all terms of’ in the constitutional text,” the court wrote.

“These non-state parties interpret Amendment 4 as if it had omitted the words ‘all terms of’ and simply read: ‘upon completion of sentence including parole or probation.’ The words ‘all terms of’ serve no meaningful purpose under the reading advanced by these non-state parties,” the opinion reads.

The advisory opinion also pointed to decisions by other courts supporting the interpretation that “all terms of sentence” encompasses obligations other than time spent incarcerated.

To bolster its findings, the majority relied in part on a “textualist” interpretation of law dating back to the 1800s, embraced more recently by the late conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

But, in an eight-page opinion that agreed with the majority’s result but dissented in part, Justice Jorge Labarga rejected that approach, writing that it excludes “extrinsic evidence” that could assist the court.

Labarga, the only remaining member of what had been a left-leaning majority before DeSantis reshaped the court last year, wrote that he agreed with majority’s “ultimate decision” that “all terms of sentence” encompasses all legal financial obligations.

“I am able to do so only because the extrinsic evidence presented concerning the sponsor’s intent assisted me,” he wrote. “I dissent to the majority’s position that the phrase ‘all terms of sentence’ is unambiguous and that the voters would ‘most likely understand’ it to include all LFOs --- without more.”

The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.

Appeals court weighs Florida law on felon voting rights

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 13:36:38 -0500

Lawyers for the electoral battleground state of Florida are asking a federal appeals court to set aside a ruling that allowed some felons to regain access to the ballot box despite owing fines and other legal debts.

Florida Republicans, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, argue that only felons who have completed all conditions of their sentences should be allowed to vote. He and GOP lawmakers say that to regain the right to vote, felons must not only serve their time but also pay all fines and other legal financial obligations.

The case before the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday could be consequential because of the razor-thin margins that sometimes decide election contests in Florida — a perennial battleground state.

“This Court’s answer to that question will have far reaching effects, as it will determine whether the State must comply with the court’s injunction in upcoming elections of national, state, and local significance in 2020,” Florida’s brief says.

At issue before the appellate court is Amendment 4, a ballot measure approved by voters in 2018, allowing felons to regain the right to vote ahead of the March 17 primaries and November’s crucial presidential balloting.

In response to Amendment 4, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill — later signed by DeSantis — stipulating that felons must pay all fines, restitution and other financial obligations to complete their sentences.

Voting rights groups immediately sued and asked for a temporary injunction that would let felons continue registering to vote and cast ballots until the merits of the law can be fully adjudicated. A full trial is expected to begin in April.

In October, a federal judge in Tallahassee called Florida’s voter registration process an “administrative nightmare” and suspended the law for plaintiffs who could not afford to pay their outstanding debts. He agreed with voter rights advocates that imposing the debt requirement amounted to a poll tax.

Although that ruling directly benefited only the 17 plaintiffs in the cases, the case could have broad implications for thousands of other felons.

During arguments Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit asked tough questions of both sides, many of them focusing on very technical legal issues. But they seemed skeptical of some of the state’s arguments.

Senior Judge Lanier Anderson repeatedly brought up a hypothetical scenario of two people convicted of the same crimes and sentenced to the same punishment, but one can afford to pay the financial obligations and has the right to vote restored while the other can’t afford to pay and remains unable to vote.

Pete Patterson, a lawyer representing the state, argued that justice would have been completed in the first case but not in the second.

One of the plaintiffs, Rosemary McCoy, traveled to Atlanta for the hearing. At a news conference afterward, she spoke passionately about regaining her right to vote.

“How long do you have to pay? We served our time. We made a mistake,” she said. “It shouldn’t be forever.”

State officials predicted “irreparable harm” if the temporary injunction stands and disputed that the financial requirement is a poll tax.

“The criminal restitution, fines, and fees that Plaintiffs have not paid are not any type of tax on the right to vote; they are aspects of punishment for their crimes that they have not fulfilled,” the state argues in its appeal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Citizenship amendment cleared for November 2020 ballot

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 12:11:16 -0500

Floridians will cast ballots in November on a proposed constitutional amendment that would change wording in the state Constitution about the citizenship of voters.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously approved placing the amendment, sponsored by the political committee Florida Citizen Voters, on the November ballot. That means voters will decide on at least two ballot initiatives this year, as justices also have signed off on a proposal that would raise the state’s minimum wage.

The Florida Citizen Voters measure would change part of the state Constitution that now says, “Every citizen of the United States who is at least eighteen years of age and who is a permanent resident of the state, if registered as provided by law, shall be an elector of the county where registered.”

The proposal would change that wording to: “Only a citizen of the United States who is at least eighteen years of age and who is a permanent resident of the state, if registered as provided by law, shall be an elector of the county where registered.”

In a brief filed in October at the Supreme Court, attorneys for Florida Citizen Voters wrote that the “only object of the proposed amendment is to require United States citizenship to vote in state elections, and the proposed amendment seeks to accomplish that object by directly requiring United States citizenship.”

The Jacksonville-based political committee submitted 928,169 valid petition signatures to the state, far exceeding a 766,200-signature requirement. But it also needed approval from the Supreme Court, which reviews whether proposed amendments meet legal tests such as not being misleading to voters.

The proposal did not draw opposition at the Supreme Court, unlike some initiatives that have spurred battles about ballot wording. Florida Citizen Voters has received more than $8.2 million in cash and in-kind contributions, which all came from the non-profit group Citizen Voters, Inc.

“Here, no briefs were submitted in opposition to the initiative petition. And our independent review … yields no basis for concluding that the initiative petition meets the ‘high threshold’ of being ‘clearly and conclusively defective,’” Thursday’s nine-page Supreme Court opinion said, citing terms from court precedent.

The Supreme Court last month approved the proposed minimum-wage amendment, which has been spearheaded by prominent Orlando attorney John Morgan. The proposal would increase the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour on Sept. 30, 2021 and increase it by $1 each year until it hits $15 an hour on Sept. 30, 2026. The state’s minimum wage this year is $8.56 an hour.

The citizenship measure will appear on the ballot as Amendment 1, while the minimum-wage proposal will appear as Amendment 2, according to the state Division of Elections website. Each would need approval of 60 percent of voters to pass.

The Supreme Court this month also rejected one proposed constitutional amendment because of what it said was a misleading ballot summary. That amendment would have overhauled the state’s electric-utility industry.

The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.