USSC denies cert in challenge of Florida's lifetime voting ban for felons

Scotus t0day refused to hear the case Johnson v. Bush, 05-212. This was a challenge to Florida law that bans convicted felons from voting. 48 of 50 states have such laws, some like Florida where the Felons are allowed to petition to get their voting rights back. Today's denial does have national implications.

Democrats and my local paper The Palm Beach Post have been pushing hard for repeal of these laws for the last few years. I'm so cynical that I feel the reason this is done is because the Dems feel these are a group guaranteed to vote for them. Does the Post or the Democrats think this could boomerang the other way? Voters seeing this for what it is. Hmm.....

I guess we'll just have to wait for the obligatory Post editorial attacking the court for this decision.

Open Post- Don Surber, Outside the Beltway and Euphoric Reality

The Supreme Court refused Monday to review Florida's lifetime ban on voting rights for convicted felons, a case that would have had national implications for millions of would-be voters.

Justices declined to hear a challenge to Florida's 19th century ban, which applies to inmates and those who have served their time and been released.

Felons are kept from voting in every state but Maine and Vermont, although restrictions vary.

The issue of voter eligibility got renewed attention after the 2000 presidential election, which was decided by fewer than 600 votes in Florida.

The Florida appeal had been closely watched, because lower courts have been fractured in similar voting cases. Minority and voting rights groups urged justices to hear the case.

"The court not only missed an opportunity to right a great historic injustice, it has shut the courthouse door in the face of hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised citizens," Catherine Weiss, the Brennan Center for Justice lawyer for the Florida ex-felons, said Monday.

The Florida law was contested in 2000 in Miami on behalf of people who have already completed their punishments, including probation or parole.

Their appeal asked if restrictions can be challenged under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which removed barriers to black voters.One in 10 black Florida adults, not counting current prisoners, is barred from voting, the court was told.

The case "involves the intersection of two rights that demand the highest level of constitutional protection: the right to participate in the political process and to be free of race discrimination in doing so," Weiss wrote in a filing.

Florida attorneys argued that states have authority to set their own policies. Congress, in enacting the voting law, did not have the power to "intrude so deeply into the sovereign right over every state to set qualifications for voting and to establish punishments for felons," Washington attorney Charles Cooper, representing Florida, said in the state's filing.

Earlier this year, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack issued an executive order automatically restoring voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences. Previously, Iowa felons had to apply individually for clemency, a costly and lengthy process.

Florida also has a process for felons to seek their voting rights, but there is no guarantee of success.The Supreme Court appeal was filed on behalf of more than 600,000 Florida felons. The court has refused to deal with this issue before.

Last year, justices left intact a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that allowed current and former inmates to challenge as racially discriminatory a Washington state law stripping them of their right to vote. The high court also let stand a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the opposite direction, in the case of a convicted New York felon.