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Felonious Junk: Jeb! makes token changes

Jeb! and his buddies on the Florida Clemency Board made some cosmetic changes to the state’s backward, racist felon disenfranchisement rules yesterday, and the changes should help some select people who have served their time to rejoin the ranks of voters, but the rule changes are minor, and Florida remains one of only 7 states that punishes people twice by denying their civil rights after they have paid for their crimes.

Bottom line: 500,000 ex-felons in Florida still can’t vote. 500,000 people cannot get a state license or fully rejoin society, and that’s just the way that Jeb! likes it.

Florida is one of a handful of states that do not automatically restore most civil rights when felons have served their time. The system has come under increasing criticism, especially during the presidential election, when civil rights advocates raised concerns about voters being disenfranchised in a key battleground state.

Many felons must seek a hearing before the clemency board to regain their civil rights. More than 4,000 people are waiting for a hearing. They could be stuck in bureaucratic limbo for years because the clemency board, a four-person body led by Bush, meets only four times annually and hears about 200 cases.

Civil rights groups argue that the process makes it difficult for ex-convicts to reintegrate into society. Aside from voting, they can't serve on juries or hold office. There is an economic factor, too - many cannot get professional licenses. They also cannot own firearms.

The changes approved Thursday, effective immediately, narrow the list of crimes for which felons must seek a formal hearing before the clemency board to regain their civil rights. It also waives hearings for people who go several years without committing a new crime.

Actually, according to the new rules, they must stay arrest free, not crime free, which means that being falsely accused and arrested is enough to disqualify.

And despite Jeb!’s rosy rhetoric, his rule changes do not go anywhere near far enough, especially when one considers that Jeb! himself enacted many of the (still remaining) more restrictive policies that have led to over half a million people being unfairly denied their basic civil liberties.

There are two ways felons can get rights restored in Florida. When they're released from state custody, their names are automatically forwarded to the Clemency Board for consideration. If they aren't disqualified by any of the many restrictive clemency rules, felons generally get their rights back within a year. But a majority are disqualified by the rules, which means they must appeal for a formal hearing before the board, which can take years. The backlog of people waiting for that chance has quadrupled since Bush became governor, a Herald analysis found.

LOOSER RULES

On Thursday, the board loosened restrictions so that more people can regain rights without a hearing.

Among other things, the board decided to:

- Scrap several rules that block felons from regaining rights in the first place. One rule banned felons who had their rights restored once in the past decade and then commited a new crime. Another blocked felons who have been deemed ''habitual offenders'' by the state.

- Allow felons still disqualified by the rules to get their rights back quickly. The board decided that unqualified felons who have been crime-free for at least five years are eligible to regain rights without a hearing. That could potentially affect about 100,000 people.

Excluded are the most violent felons, like murderers and sexual offenders, who still must appeal directly to the board.

- Allow all felons -- regardless of their crimes -- to apply to get their rights back without a hearing if they have been arrest-free for 15 years. This single change could affect an estimated 200,000 people whose last conviction is 15 years old or more, assuming they haven't been arrested.

That will help reduce the number of people waiting to appeal directly to the board, which now stands at 4,000. At the current pace, clearing those cases could take decades.

''Given the fact that we only hear about 200 a year, that's a long time,'' Bush said.

''I believe we can do more to make civil rights restoration without a hearing available to more people,'' he said.
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Civil rights advocates, who have pushed to scrap Florida's 136-year-old voting ban altogether, said the changes are encouraging, but they don't go far enough.

For one thing, the board left largely untouched the more than 200 crimes that block felons from regaining their rights without a hearing. Under Bush, the board quadrupled the number of crimes that require felons to appear before the board -- and most of those crimes are still intact.

The changes also require felons to remain arrest-free before they can regain rights, which means even people whose charges are later dropped would still be kicked out of the quicker process.

''We're glad that the governor and the Cabinet have begun to move toward meaningful reform,'' said Courtenay Strickland, voting rights project director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. ``But so much more needs to be done in order to bring Florida into line with the rest of the nation.''

More on Florida’s felon disenfranchisement program.