Rights Groups Sue After DeSantis Signs ‘Poll Tax’ Bill Targeting Former Felons
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed into law a bill
that equates
to a poll tax on former felons whose voting rights were restored last year
by a majority of Florida voters who amended the state’s
constitution. Civil rights groups immediately countered by suing DeSantis’
administration in an effort to stop the new law.
DeSantis signed SB
7066, which requires formerly incarcerated people to fulfill all of the legal
financial obligations of their criminal sentences before their voting
rights are restored. The bill’s signing was the culmination of an effort by DeSantis
and Republican state lawmakers in recent months to block Amendment 4, which enfranchised
roughly 1.4 million residents with former felony convictions who had completed their sentences, excluding
those convicted of murder or sexual offenses.
Amendment 4, one of the most important expansions of voters
rights since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was approved by nearly 65% of
Florida voters last year, or some 5 million people.
In response to DeSantis signing the law, 10 Floridians,
along with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, the Brennan
Center for Justice, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, sued
Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee and numerous county elections
officials. The lawsuit argues that SB 7066 violates several constitutional
amendments, including the 1st,
14th, and 15th. The complaint also argues that the law violates the 24th
Amendment, which abolished poll taxes.
The lawsuit notes that Florida’s Amendment 4 ended the
disenfranchisement of 10% of the state’s voting-age population, and 20% of its
African American voting-age population.
As Splinter’s Sophie Weiner previously noted, limiting voter
enfranchisement to those who have repaid legal financial obligations could
prevent up to 1.1 million former prisoners from voting. And NBC News reported
that while court fees vary per person, even
small fees are difficult to pay back, given that the median annual income
for those newly out of prison is about $6,500, according to one Harvard
researcher.
Per the lawsuit:
SB 7066 conditions Plaintiffs’ right to vote on their wealth
and penalizes returning citizens who are unable to pay, in violation of the
First, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Twenty-Fourth Amendments and the Ex Post Facto
Clause of the U.S. Constitution. If not enjoined, the law will have a massive
disenfranchising effect, and result in sustained, and likely permanent,
disenfranchisement for individuals without means. It creates two classes of
returning citizens: those who are wealthy enough to vote and those who cannot
afford to. This disenfranchisement will be borne disproportionately by
low-income individuals and racial minorities, due to longstanding and
well-documented racial gaps in poverty and employment.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Northern
Florida, also claims SB 7066 is further unlawful because it was motivated by
racial discrimination. “It is well-established that people with felony
convictions in Florida are disproportionately Black—a product of higher rates
of police stops, arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Black citizens in the
criminal justice system,” it said. “It is also well-established that a large
majority of returning citizens have [legal financial obligations] they cannot pay
now or in the foreseeable future.”