Mississippi Today
Speaker White asks GOP leaders to explore restoration of voting rights to some people convicted of felonies
Top leaders in the Mississippi House are in the early stages of crafting a pathway for some people convicted of disenfranchising felonies to have their voting rights restored — the first such effort at the Capitol in more than a decade.
Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, told Mississippi Today that he has tasked Constitution Committee Chairman Price Wallace and Judiciary B Committee Chairman Kevin Horan with proposing legislation that would restore suffrage for Mississippians convicted of certain felonies.
“I’ve talked to some members in the House, and I haven’t gotten any negative response,” said Wallace, a Republican from Mendenhall.
The two committee leaders at this stage have different ideas about which types of disqualifying felonies shouldn’t be subject to the lifetime voting ban. But both agree that suffrage should be restored only after someone has completed the terms of their sentence.
Wallace said he was open to restoring suffrage for people convicted of nearly all nonviolent crimes. Horan, a Republican from Grenada, said he also wants to explore restoring suffrage to people convicted of some lower-level violent crimes, with the exception of people convicted of embezzling public money.
“I don’t see why we wouldn’t at least look into it,” Horan said. “But I haven’t really thought that much about it at this stage.”
Under the Mississippi Constitution, people convicted of any of 10 felonies — including perjury, arson and bigamy — lose their voting rights for life. A 2009 opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office expanded the list of disenfranchising felonies to 22.
About 37,900 names are on the Secretary of State’s voter disenfranchisement list as of Jan. 29. The list, provided to Mississippi Today through a public records request, goes back to 1992 for felony convictions in state court. That number, however, may not be wholly accurate because no state agency tracks people once they are struck for the voter rolls. Studies commissioned by civil rights organizations in 2018 estimated between 44,000 and 50,000 Mississippians were disenfranchised.
READ MORE: Not all ex-felons are barred from voting in Mississippi, but no one is telling them that
For someone to have their suffrage restored, a lawmaker has to introduce a bill on their behalf, and two-thirds of lawmakers in both legislative chambers must agree to it. A person can also seek a gubernatorial pardon, though no executive pardon has been handed down since Gov. Haley Barbour’s final days in office in 2011.
When the drafters of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution created a new framework for Mississippi’s government, their stated intent was to reinstitute white supremacy following Reconstruction and bar Black citizens from holding office.
One way to accomplish that goal was to impose a lifetime voting ban on people convicted of certain crimes. The framers included crimes they believed African Americans were more likely to commit.
“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter … Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics,” Mississippi Gov. James K. Vardaman said at the time.
Civil rights organizations have filed two federal lawsuits over the constitutional provisions.
One group argued the list of disenfranchising crimes violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment, but federal courts rejected that argument.
Another group argued the lifetime voting ban violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. A panel of judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit initially agreed with the plaintiffs, but the full circuit is reconsidering the panel’s ruling. That case is still pending, and attorneys have indicated the case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court regardless of the outcome at the appellate level.
READ MORE: AG Lynn Fitch to federal court: Mississippi law to prevent Black people voting was not punitive
Legislative efforts to reform the disenfranchisement law face an uphill battle. Changes to the state constitution bypass the governor, but they require approval by two-thirds of the members of both the House and Senate — the highest legislative threshold requirement on the books. Then, if lawmakers pass the measure, a majority of voters must approve the change on a statewide ballot.
Rep. Kabir Karriem, a Democrat from Columbus, has filed numerous bills over several years to grant people convicted of disenfranchising felonies a way to regain their voting rights, but his legislation has never gained serious traction in the Legislature. He told Mississippi Today on Wednesday that he is working with Horan and Wallace on the legislation.
“I’m encouraged by it, and it has the potential to impact many Mississippians,” Karriem said.
While numerous Democrats for years have filed proposals to change the process for people convicted of disenfranchising crimes to regain their voting rights, conservative lawmakers in recent years have also started to support the policy.
Republican Rep. Tracy Arnold of Booneville said he plans to introduce a resolution this year to change the state constitution to create a way for some convicted felons to have their suffrage restored.
Arnold, an ordained minister, said Christian principles of forgiveness influenced his decision to advocate for restoring voting rights to people who have completed their prison sentence.
“Once you’ve paid your debt to society, that should trigger a restoration of your rights,” Arnold said. “To me, real forgiveness is restoration.”
Former House Judiciary B Chairman Nick Bain, a Republican from Corinth, shepherded a proposal through the Legislature in 2022 that sought to clarify that people who have had a disenfranchising felony expunged from their criminal record would regain their voting rights. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed Bain’s proposal, and the Legislature did not override the veto.
The last time the Legislature substantively addressed felony suffrage was when the House overwhelmingly passed legislation in 2008 to restore voting rights to all Mississippians convicted of felonies, except for those convicted of murder or rape.
The 2008 legislation later died in the Senate, where Phil Bryant — who would later become governor and not pardon a single Mississippian convicted of any crime — presided as lieutenant governor.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.”
A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
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High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
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We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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