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Voting is not a privilege. It's a right. But one group of citizens has been long denied that right in parts of the country.
In half the states, including California, people convicted of felonies who have served their time in prison re-enter their communities with the right to vote automatically and immediately restored. In Vermont, Maine and the District of Columbia, people retain their right to vote even when incarcerated.
But the other 25 states have at least some temporary voting restrictions on people formerly incarcerated on felony convictions. In 10 of those states, people convicted of certain crimes, such as murder and rape, are prohibited from voting permanently, unless in most cases the governor pardons them.
Forbidding people who finished prison sentences to vote is profoundly unjust -- and unwise. It's difficult enough for people convicted of a serious crime to make their way back into their communities, find jobs and reestablish relationships with family and friends. Disenfranchising them only stifles their efforts to re-engage not just in society but in our democracy. It's even more outrageous when you consider that people returning from prison are counted in the U.S. census for purposes of representation in Congress and for the electoral college. (Even in prison, they get counted.)
So, it's encouraging that Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) has introduced a bill, the Next Step Home Act, that would restore voting rights in elections for federal offices, such as members of Congress, to some who were convicted of a felony and sentenced to federal prison when they return to their communities and finish out their parole (or probation in some cases). It would not apply to state elections.
However, Butler's bill does not go far enough and would shut out too many people, benefiting mainly those who were released under the First Step Act. This bipartisan criminal reform bill was signed into law by former President Trump in 2018, and allows certain people to participate in rehabilitative programs that earn them credits toward shortening their time in prison or take advantage of sentencing reforms.
Butler's bill also includes elderly offenders who are considered less likely to commit a crime again and reinstates their voting rights even if they are still under home detention, completing their parole.
But the nearly 30,000 people released under First Step is a fraction of the 3.5 million Americans no longer incarcerated but still disenfranchised from federal elections, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which supports Butler's bill.
So why would she seek to help only this particular segment of the former prison felon population? Because, it seems, that is what has a chance of passing both houses of Congress. This would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, and according to a spokesperson for Butler, anchoring it to the First Step Act could help it garner the bipartisan goodwill of that previous bill.
* Guest editorial by Los Angeles Times.