Posted on 05/24/2020 8:32:43 PM PDT by aimhigh
Thousands of convicted felons will be eligible to vote in Florida after a federal court ruled that a law that created wealth-based hurdles to voting is unconstitutional.
The law, SB 7066, required people with past convictions to pay all outstanding legal fees, costs, fines and restitution before regaining their right to vote. The law undermined Floridians’ 2018 passage of Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to more than a million people who completed the terms of their sentence, including parole or probation.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle found that conditioning voting on payment of legal financial obligations a person is unable to pay violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by discriminating on the basis of wealth. He said that requiring the payment of costs and fees violates the 24th Amendment, which prohibits poll taxes and violates the National Voter Registration Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at whio.com ...
Nevertheless, if it smells like a polecat its a polecat.
If it smells like a poll tax its a poll tax.
Too many virtue signalers in Florida voted for this idiocy.
If you don’t trust them to vote and keep and bear arms then they shouldn’t be out on the streets.
Then go back to felons not being able to vote no matter what.
Wow, how did the Ninth Circuit Court get to rule on this?
Just kidding, but it might just as well have been.
You know what, they are taking all the bad things away from
sentencing.
You get released if there’s a virus.
You get to vote when you like, for the folks who let you
out early.
You’ll have a gun in ten minutes after you hit the streets,
and I’ll be darned if I can think how the state won’t help
then get it, the way things are going.
The problem is that the law resembles a poll tax, which we got rid of as a nation about 55-60 years ago.
Judge Hinkle is a Harvard Law School graduate who was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton. His ruling in the 2014 case, Brunner vs. Scott, declared Florida laws against same sex marriage unconstitutional.
The rule of law simply does not exist is governors and judges conspire to make up laws on the fly and at their whim.
JoMa
Amendment 4 should then be invalid because restitution was one of its conditions, without which the law would not have passed.
This is a poll tax, it can’t be permitted.
<>Floridians’ 2018 passage of Amendment 4<>
It’s why I despise direct democracy. The people-at-large are not deliberative and have no business making law or passing constitutional amendments.
We’ll have a million or so ex-cons on the rolls, people that a jury of their peers found so dangerous they had to be kept in cages.
The amendment explicitly said you had to complete all terms of your sentence, and that includes fines and court costs.
But sure, ignore the law.
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