Posted on 12/27/2006 10:29:43 AM PST by DogByte6RER
Bill seeks to restore felons' voting rights
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A bill that would automatically return voting rights to felons after they complete their sentences has been introduced by a Florida legislator who is still in office even though he is a felon.
The bill introduced Thursday by state Sen. Gary Siplin would change the state's long-standing constitutional ban on felons voting. Now, a felon's rights can be restored only by the state's clemency board, which must hear each case in a process that can take months or years.
Florida is one of just three states – all in the South – that don't automatically restore voting rights after completion of a sentence, said Senate Minority Leader Steven Geller.
Siplin, a two-term Democrat from Orlando, was convicted in August on felony grand theft charges for having employees work on his 2004 re-election campaign on state time. He was sentenced last month to three years' probation and 300 hours of community service, but that has been postponed pending his appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
A convicted democrat legislator seeking to give convicted felons their voting rights back? Of Course!
Why don't the democrats just include this item onto their 2008 Presidential campaign platform? It could be right behind the voting rights for al Qaeda terrorists plank.
Convicted felons could very well be the next constituency group for the democrats. Just imagine groups of convicted rapists, child molesters, arsonists and murderers raising campaign funds for the democrats so the dems could abolish the crimes that these thugs were convicted of.
Democrat laws = Chaos
Why Democrats got boost from sex offenders
04/07/2003
By John Patterson Daily Herald State Government Editor
Weblink at: http://www.dailyherald.com/search/main_story.asp?intID=3771857
SPRINGFIELD - A former state worker with Democratic ties at a Joliet treatment center for the state's most dangerous sex offenders registered more than 125 of them to vote last fall.
Voting patterns show the child molesters, rapists and other sexual deviants overwhelmingly supported Democrats. But a spokesman for the state agency responsible for their treatment said the worker was doing her job and nothing improper happened.
Will County records show in the months leading up to the November 2002 elections, 127 of the sex offenders being treated in Joliet were registered to vote by Fran Aden, who worked at the center.
At the same time, campaign finance reports show Aden served as campaign treasurer for Democrat Beth Ann May who ran for Will County clerk against Republican Nancy Schultz Voots.
Voots won, but May carried the precinct where the sex offenders voted. The precinct tends to vote Democrat anyway. Glenn Poshard carried it over Republican George Ryan in the 1998 governor's race. Al Gore also won the precinct over George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race.
Simple math shows the sex offenders added even more Democratic votes. County election officials said 120 absentee ballots were returned from the sex offenders' center. In the clerk's race, 229 voters were cast in that precinct. So sex offenders made up more than half the vote.
Voots, the Republican, received 42 votes in the precinct. May, the Democrat, received 187.
Similar patterns exist in that precinct in the governor and attorney general races, two of the more closely contested races last fall.
In the governor's race, 237 votes were cast. Republican Jim Ryan received 20 votes. Democrat Rod Blagojevich received 210. The other candidates received seven.
In the attorney general's race, 234 votes were cast. Republican Joseph Birkett received 38 votes. Democrat Lisa Madigan received 171 votes. The Libertarian Party candidate received 25.
Illinois law strips prison inmates of their voting rights. Because these sex offenders are no longer serving criminal sentences, they regained the right to vote.
Aden retired last year. Directory assistance had no listing and she could not be reached for comment. When asked her thoughts on the situation, May said she had none and would not comment further on the record.
A spokesman for the Department of Human Services, the agency running the center, said nothing sinister occurred.
"One thing has nothing to do with the other," department spokesman Reginald Marsh said, referring to Aden's political affiliation and the registration effort. He said a few offenders inquired about voting. The agency checked the law and determined they could. Aden handled registration.
"We don't allow any campaigning inside a state-operated center. It's against the law," Marsh said. "Our main concern was that we gave them their constitutional right to vote if they chose to do so."
However, sex offenders' interest in voting has since dwindled. Not one asked for a ballot for the April 1 local elections, Will County election officials said.
Marsh reasoned that governor elections always draw more attention.
But one Will County lawmaker said the situation is more than just happenstance.
"Without pointing the finger of blame, it does appear to be more than a coincidence that there would be a very large number of absentee ballots requested from the person who was a campaign aide and worker for a candidate and then after that person was defeated there's no longer any interest in state or local government being demonstrated by the same people," said state Sen. Edward Petka, a Plainfield Republican. "I think those facts actually speak for themselves."
That sex offenders voted against Jim Ryan is not surprising. He championed the 1998 state law responsible for them being detained for treatment, perhaps for life, rather than freed.
Ryan declined comment.
Each of these sex offenders was sent to prison. But before their sentences ended, prosecutors went to court and argued they suffer mental defects and will strike again. Once deemed sexually dangerous, the inmates went to a secure treatment facility until they can prove they are not a threat.
The state's lone treatment center is a former prison building in Joliet. Another spokesman for the Department of Human Services said 189 offenders receive treatment there.
I wonder if they will restore his right to buy a firearm?
(sarcasm)
I think the same thing.
Talk about our "representatives" being out of control and only interested in thier political career! This guy does jack sh%t of use until he gets convicted and the first bill he intoduces is completely self serving and a way for him and him alone to skirt the law, no matter what else this "bill" affects.
sarc/off
Just asking, seriously seeking enlightment:
Why should a citizen, having been duly tried and sentenced in a court of law, and having satisfied the terms of punishment levied, be thereafter for the balance of his life be denied basic civil rights such as the right to vote, the right to bear arms in self defense, et cetera? Was not the penalty imposed by the jury or judge intended to exact the price demanded by law?
Absolutely not. The convicted felon will not have satisfied his debt to society until he has been duly imprisoned, humiliated, starved, raped and brutalized.
Honestly...I think your question does have some merit.
However, in this day and age your notion sounds great in theory but it would just lead to chaos in practice.
Another basic and recognized civil liberty is the "pursuit of happiness" as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Part of this pursuit could include employment, freedom of association, freedom from government and the likes.
This brings up some interersting questions though when it comes to a convicted felon...
Should a convicted bank robber be allowed to pursue his choice of employment by working at a bank?
Should a convicted embezzler of social security funds be allowed to later work for the Social Security Administration?
Should a convicted rapist be allowed to be a licensed as and work as an Ob-Gyn?
Should a convicted child molester be allowed to pursue his freedom of association by working as a volunteer cub scout master?
I think the answer to these hypotheticals and your question is that bad behavior has consequences. And even though the felon has served out his time in prison and parole, there are still repercussions to committing the crime long after the jail time is done.
I think that this does serve as an important example to society that if you break the law, the stigma of the crime could follow somebody for the rest of his/her life. This can be an important deterrent.
For those convicted felons who have truly reformed and now serve to better their communities, there is still an option for them to regain their lost civil liberties; executive pardons.
The President and the governors have this executive power in which they can restore certain lost liberties to ex-convicts who have demonstrated true reform and redemption. This is a seldom used executive power but it can be an important function of a chief executive.
Our Judeo-Christian heritage seems to look favorably upon redemption and Americans in general love comeback stories. However, such cases of redemption and comeback must be carefully scrutinized through a quasi legal/political process so that the charlatan or sociopath cannot get an undeserved pardon.
Think of the criminal financier Mark Rich's pardon from Clinton in January 2001.
The idea that serving a full prison term for one's crimes automatically wipes the slate clean is not one that society wants. Otherwise there wouldn't be the widely popular laws like Megan's Law and Jessica's Law in effect throughout much of the country.
I hope this helps to answer your question. :)
Exactly. Here in Florida they can fill out a form and file it to get their voting rights restored. The liberals want to make this process automatic, since voting isn't really high on the "to do" list for the exiting graduates of the "convict condo".
The democRAT party is the home of every kind of criminal and pervert imaginable
It helps somewhat. Perhaps those punished for felonious acts that did not involve wilful infliction of grave bodily injury or death on persons could be accorded full restoration of civil rights, while those who committed grave acts of personal violence would not. The idea of not ever being able to enjoy the basic right of self defense, by lethal means when necessary, not to mention certain civil rights (privileges) such as the right to vote, will always trouble my sense of justice.
Democrats would, of course, like to allow felons to vote while still imprisoned.
So people who have shown disdain for the rule of law will get to vote on the people who make the laws. Citizenship will mean nothing if this passes.
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