Posted on 01/16/2012 9:23:33 AM PST by detective
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Rick Santorum pushed back Monday morning against a series of ads being run against him on his record on earmarks, labor issues and a vote he took in 2002 that would have forced states to let felons' voting rights be restored when they completed their sentences.
Mr. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, is demanding the felon charge be stricken from an ad being run by a political group backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of his opponents in the Republican presidential primary.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
This is a terrible idea. If Santorum supports convicted felons, then I don't think I can support him.
I had thought Santorum was the best of the candidates. I never thought he was perfect but I thought he was the best choice. Now I need to rethink my position. I don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good and I realize there is no candidate that I will always agree with. But this troubles me.
Yep, if this is true and a lot of the convicted felons are illegals.
Bit of a non issue since felons can already vote in every state. Some conditions apply in most, such as they must have served their sentences, probation, paroles etc. In Maine and Vermont, incarcerated felons are allowed to vote.
http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=286
Why just their voting rights? If he doesn’t “support” the restoration of their Second Amendment rights once they “complete their sentences”, he’s a hypocrite just as the commie ‘RATS are on this same subject.
I want to know what the Republican candidates always seem to be for things that will help only the other side?
This is likely a deal breaker.
Dang.
.
If a felon has served all his time, is his debt to society not paid?
Yep, as long as people try to take any of our God given rights, they will eventually be taken from us all. While they’re at it, they can reduce the 10,000+ pages of the criminal code that makes everyone an unprosecuted felon.
I’m a convicted felon.
The vicious nature of my not showing up for court many years ago is plenty of reason for stripping me of my vote forever.
BTW I vote legally and I vote conservative because voting rights are a state issue.
Just be thankful we allow stupid people to vote.
Good question. My guess is that they believe they can bring RAT voters to the GOP by supporting certain measures. This is delusional, but unfortunately a common belief. Most of the people they want to attract to the GOP cause don’t even pay attention to the news, they just automatically vote for the party that gives out the most goodies.
There is absolutely no (no) excuse for supporting felons' voting rights.
You have a brief (make that extremely brief) moment to admit that this was an horrific error of judgment; and that you would not ever, ever, ever support such an Alinsky-esqe bill again.
The (election wrecking) "ball" is in your court.
.
I’m getting sick of all this infighting by the Republican Establishment against Santorum—or anyone else of whom they disapprove.
This is the second article today where the WashTimes pushes propaganda against Santorum in order to sink him in the primaries.
First they did that vague article that the Evangelicals didn’t really endorse him, because someone saw somebody cheat at the vote. Really? Absolutely no established sources or facts are involved.
Now they try to tar Santorum as favoring votes for felons. He didn’t “admit” it, he accused the Superpac of lying because they said he wanted to give felons the vote. No, he wanted to allow them to vote after they had served their time, passed their paroles, and were finished with paying their debt to society. It’s the DEMOCRATS who want to give felons still in prison the vote, but the ad pretended that Santorum sided with them.
No, I agree with him. You serve your time, you pay the price, you do your parole, and you get your citizenship back. Or doesn’t anyone believe in the idea of forgiveness for those who have paid the price?
In many states, a felon who has paid his debt can petition the governor to have the right to vote restored.
This makes sense to me.
NO! The Pharisee’s said so!/s
The thing is that these morons don’t realize that EVERY person commits on average no less than 3 felonies a day. We have the largest prison population in the entire world (by many times), and more than 1% of our population is in a prison at any given moment. Nearly 1/2 of all kids are arrested/detained before they reach adulthood. No one is safe, yet people are stupid enough to think that the object is not to remove ALL rights from EVERYONE.
Stop trying to take GOD given rights from people, even if they commit a crime. This infatuation with locking people up is sick and demented. I dare say 99% of prisoners have no business being in prison, and certainly not at the expense of tens of thousands of dollars a year. There are many forms of discipline that modify society and individuals behaviors. Prison isn’t one of them. Even for theft. It’s like saying, “That man stole 5,000 from you, now you get to pay $20,000 over the next several years to house feed, and clothe him, and he’ll have no means to pay you back.” I’d rather have him caned and put back to work than pay 5x, 10x, 20x the amount to keep myself “Safe.”
“The vote Mr. Santorum cast, Senate vote No. 31 in 2002, would have overridden state laws when it comes to federal elections. It would have required them to let felons register to vote once they have completed their prison sentences and any probation or parole.
If it were to pass today, it would override laws in 11 states that require felons to apply to have their rights restored, and that puts it at odds with the principles most of the GOP’s candidates are espousing on the campaign trail that states should be left to control their own destinies as much as possible.”
My understanding is that convicted felons need to apply to have there rights restored in many states(in my opinion it should be every state). The bill Santorum voted for would automatically restore voting rights to all convicted felons no matter what.
Where in the Constitution are a Citizen's Rights revoked AFTER serving their prison sentence, probation and parole??
“Or doesn’t anyone believe in the idea of forgiveness for those who have paid the price?”
That would take logical thinking.
And lately, it seems sorely lacking here.
You’ve paid your ‘debt’ and you should have your rights restored.
No one is talking about supporting ‘current’ felons or even ‘illegal immigrants’ who have served their sentences.
Just the fact that some one is here ‘illegal’ means they can’t ‘serve their sentence’ because they haven’t been convicted of their crime of entering the country ‘illegally’.
The inanity around here lately just amazes me.
Bad idea to begin with but the worst part is he wanted to force states to do it since they are responsible for elections and election laws, till the 1960s civil rights bills jumped in and started micro-managing certain states.
Very discouraging.
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