Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Editorial: A matter of simple justice
If politics are a factor in the governor's efforts to restore nonviolent offenders' voting rights, they are far from the most important factor.
From the RoundTable blog
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Some state Republican lawmakers are griping about Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine's efforts to restore felons' voting rights in time for them to register for the November election.
The Republicans have no beef.
Kaine is bringing greater fairness to an unduly harsh system in Virginia that strips felons of many citizenship rights. The governor can restore the most basic of these, the right to vote -- after a felon has served his time and kept his record clean for several years.
But ex-convicts must apply. Many don't know they can.
Kaine pledged earlier this year to deal quickly with applications from nonviolent felons who submit their petitions by Aug. 1. Now, The Washington Post reports, a coalition of social justice and civil rights groups has started a public information campaign to inform convicts about the process and urge them to apply.
This coincides nicely with the Barack Obama presidential campaign's plan to register tens of thousands of new voters this summer in Virginia, considered a key battleground state by the presumptive Democratic candidate.
All of which has prompted some Republicans to sniff the political winds and claim to smell a rat. As Del. C. Todd Gilbert of Shenandoah commented to The Post, "I don't know a lot of young Republicans who end up being felons."
Young black men, though, make up a disproportionate share of the nation's prison population, and of Virginia's. The Washington-based Sentencing Project estimates 20 percent of the state's black residents are disenfranchised either because they are in prison or have a felony record. Former inmates, political strategists tell The Post, comprise the Old Dominion's largest bloc of unregistered voters.
Obama is black. A lot of ex-convicts are black and, the Republicans reason, predisposed to vote for Obama. Kaine, they grumble, is playing politics in expediting the process to restore former inmates' voting rights.
Kaine -- a national co-chairman of Obama's campaign -- insists partisanship isn't a factor.
Whether it is or is not doesn't matter.
Restoring so fundamental a right is simple justice for people who have served their time, stayed out of trouble and want to take up the responsibilities of citizenship.
This is not a radical idea. In most states, a felon's right to vote is restored automatically upon completion of his or her sentence. Virginia is unusually and unreasonably restrictive.
Kaine is right to try to expand access to the voting booth.
