Protesters Arrested in Tennessee Could Now Lose Their Right to Vote

Mother Jones ^ | 8/22/2020 | Stephanie Mencimer

[simpson96]

On Friday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a controversial bill that enhances penalties for certain crimes related to political protests and makes it a felony to illegally camp on state property. In Tennessee, a felony conviction automatically revokes an individual’s right to vote.

The law also increases penalties for assaulting a first responder, obstructing emergency vehicles, and rioting.

The bill follows two months of anti-racism protests in Nashville, during which activists have camped outside the state capitol building in an effort to secure a meeting with Lee. According to the Associated Press, state legislators claimed the law was needed after some protesters set fire to a courthouse in May. But civil libertarians were quick to criticize the measure as detrimental to free speech and criminal justice reform in a state that already uses felon disenfranchisement laws to bar large numbers of Black residents from voting.

Tennessee is one of many states that makes it virtually impossible for former felons to regain their voting rights. Just over 420,000 Tennessee residents have been disenfranchised because of a past felony conviction. Since 1990, fewer than 12,000 of them have succeeded in regaining their voting rights, thanks to an onerous process that applies even to people who have completed sentences for low-level felonies. As a result, more than 20 percent of Black Tennesseans are unable to vote.

“We are very disappointed in Governor Lee’s decision to sign this bill, which chills free speech, undermines criminal justice reform and fails to address the very issues of racial justice and police violence raised by the protesters who are being targeted,” ACLU of Tennessee Executive Director Hedy Weinberg said

[fluorescence]

> As a result, more than 20 percent of Black Tennesseans are unable to vote.

If this story were about some other community, more than 20% of community members being convicted felons might indicate some sort of cultural problem within that community.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

she writes for Mother Jones, a Marxist publication that had ties to the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies and other leftist organizations.

[ridesthemiles]

Destroying MY property or ANY property tht doesn’t belong to YOU isn’t ‘Free Speech”.

It is outright vandalism & destruction.

IF I destroyed YOUR items, you would be incensed.

[Jim Noble]

One of the worst outcomes of the civil rights movement was the acceptance of an undifferentiated “right to protest”.

There is no such right.

This is confected out of two actual rights - the right to speak freely, and the right to peaceably assemble IN ORDER TO petition the government for redress of grievances.

It is perfectly obvious that showing up with helmets, face shields or gas masks, body armor, and bats does not contemplate peaceable assembly.

And there is no sense in which breaking windows and setting fires constitute petition in any rational sense.

This is open insurrection, and it will get worse until it is stopped. The fact that the insurrectionists have governmental and military support is turning insurrection into revolution - and that means, all bets are off.

[MikelTackNailer]

Nashville’s beautiful Legislative Plaza, where these heathens have been camping, has many water hook-ups for fire hoses. They haven’t been put to use spraying the trash off.