Felon Disenfranchisement

[Dill]

(04-18-2018, 10:59 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: MORE white fellons - a majority, in fact - are disenfranchised than black fellons.  If that makes the law racist, then the law is REALLY BAD at racism.
Geez, next you're going to tell me welfare reform is racist eventhough there's more white people on welfare.

Back in the 19th century, politicians in states like Mississippi and Alabama initiated voter disenfranchisement by directing it selectively to crimes they thought more likely to be committed by blacks.

http://www.prrac.org/full_text.php?item_id=7794&newsletter_id=63
The disenfranchisement laws adopted in a number of Southern states were not at all subtle, often requiring the loss of voting rights only for those offenses believed to be committed primarily by blacks. In Mississippi, for example, the 1890 constitutional convention called for disenfranchisement for such crimes as burglary, theft, arson and obtaining money under false pretenses, but not for robbery or murder. In the words of a Mississippi Supreme Court decision several years later, blacks engaged in crime were “given rather to furtive offenses than to the robust crimes of the whites.”

Other Southern states – Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia -- followed this pattern as well in their targeting of “furtive offenses.” The intent of such policy was made clear by the author of the Alabama constitution provision, who, according to Andrew Shapiro, writing in the Yale Law Journal, "estimated the crime of wife-beating alone would disqualify sixty percent of the Negroes." Thus, by the convoluted logic of these provisions, a man would be disenfranchised if convicted of beating his wife but not if convicted of killing her. Alabama’s constitution also barred voting for anyone convicted of crimes of “moral turpitude,” including a variety of misdemeanors. Here, too, the intent and effect were quite obvious, resulting in ten times as many blacks as whites being disenfranchised, many for non-prison offenses.

One reason our Southern friends were doing it this way was because, after the passage of the 14th Amendment, explicit reference to race in laws risked legal challenge. Knowing something of past intent behind and tactics of disenfranchisement helps us look more closely at how it continues today, as the effort to disenfranchise without explicit reference to race continues.