Although federal law allows states to bar felons from voting, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that Washington state is violating the Voting Rights Act by barring felons from voting.
Sharon Browne, lead attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, and Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, co-wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, in which they argue otherwise. An excerpt of: “Felons have lost their right to vote.”
“If a state were to use its felon disenfranchisement laws deliberately to keep blacks from voting, as was sometimes done in the Jim Crow era, then it is clear it would be in violation of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has so ruled. But what if there is no such discriminatory intent: Is it enough to show that a disproportionate number of, say, African Americans are in prison?
“The answer is clearly no when it comes to the Constitution. The claim in Farrakhan, however, is that such disproportionate ‘results’ are enough to prove a violation of the federal voting rights law. The intent and history of the law refutes this claim.
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“What’s more, the Constitution explicitly assumes that felons may be barred from voting. The 14th Amendment — which, like the 15th, was passed during Reconstruction to ensure equal treatment of African Americans — acknowledges that states can disenfranchise people for ‘participation in rebellion, or other crime.’ So an interpretation of the Voting Rights Act to bar felon disenfranchisement would not only be inconsistent with the intent of that statute, it would exceed Congress’ constitutional authority.”
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