Posted on 04/04/2010 11:37:47 PM PDT by ConservativeJen
Apparently unaware that the phrase “letting the inmates run the asylum” is supposed to be a joke, the Democrats are turning to a fresh source of votes to replace those of middle class Americans they are losing: convicted felons. Congressional Democrats are pushing an unconstitutional law that would give criminals as much of a say as their victims in how society is run.
The proposed law, H.R. 3335, prevents states from barring felons from voting by mandating that “The right of an individual who is a citizen of the United States to vote in any election for Federal office shall not be denied or abridged because that individual has been convicted of a criminal offense unless such individual is serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of the election.” Convicted felons not currently in jail, including those in ‘residential community treatment centers’ as well as those on parole and probation, will be added to the voting rolls.
The bill sponsored by Michigan Democrat John Conyers would allow his wife, a former Detroit City Council member who plead guilty to felony charges of bribery, to vote after she completes her prison sentence. The bill is co-sponsored by Alcee Hastings, a disgraced former federal judge who was removed for corruption and perjury; Charles Rangel, who has been accused of tax fraud; and Barney Frank, who once became embroiled in controversy when it was revealed that a prostitute ring had been run out of his apartment.
Even proponents of felon voting admit that "Disenfranchisement in the U.S. is a heritage from ancient Greek and Roman traditions carried into Europe." People who have violated the basic laws that hold society together should not be permitted to have an equal say as law abiding citizens in electing the officials who enforce and write laws. We should not allow convicted murderers, rapists, and thieves to tip the balance of who becomes President of the United States and which party controls Congress.
In 2000 in Florida, around 5,000 convicts voted illegally, about 80% of whom were registered Democrats. Had the over 600,000 felons in Florida been able to vote legally, they would easily have overcome George Bush’s slim margin of victory. In the 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington, the Seattle Times found 129 voters who were confirmed to have voted illegally, in just the two counties they surveyed. That year, the Democrat won the race by 129 votes. In states that allow some form of felon voting, Bill Clinton won 86% of the felon vote in 1992 and 93% in 1996.
A study by Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota discovered that Democrats could have turned numerous defeats at the ballot box into victories by giving the vote to convicted felons. For example, Republican Senators John Warner of Virginia and John Tower of Texas would never have first won election in 1978 if felons had voted in those elections, which would have given Democrats a 60 vote super-majority. The Republican Senate majorities of 4-10 seats from 1994-2004 would never have happened; instead the Democrats would have held majorities of the same margin.
The study even found that if in the 1960 election “had the contemporary disfranchisement regime prevailed at the time” then “it is very likely that Richard M. Nixon would have won the popular vote and possible that he may have won the electoral vote.” The ‘dead people vote’ in Chicago would have been irrelevant, with Nixon winning Texas, Missouri, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Delaware. Had this happened, Lyndon Johnson would almost certainly never have become President and implemented his welfare state, not to mention the implications regarding Vietnam..
Prominent legal scholars doubt whether this proposed law is even Constitutional. Roger Clegg, President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, doubts the claim by the bill’s authors that the law is authorized byArticle I, Section 4 ofthe Constitution. Article I, Section 4 only authorizes the federal government to regulate “the times, the places, and the manner of elections,” not who is allowed to vote in them.
James Madison wrote that to leave voting requirements open to the “regulation of the Congress would have been improper.” Alexander Hamilton stated that the federal power under Article I, Section 4 was limited to only the ‘time, place, and manner’ of elections and that “the qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen . . . are defined and fixed in the Constitution.” The Constitution currently forbids exclusion from voting due to age, race, or gender. Under the 10th Amendment all other qualifications are reserved to the states. For example, many states granted the vote to women, racial minorities, and 18-21 year olds before the federal Constitution was amended to allow them to do so. Many states also had property requirements for decades after the ratification of the Constitution.
Proponents of the bill to allow felons to vote alternatively claim it may be Constitutional under the 14th and 15th Amendments, which enable Congress to pass laws to enforce the amendments against racial discrimination. The left wing groups ‘Human Rights Watch’ and ‘The Sentencing Project’ argue that since black men are more likely to commit felonies, laws that disenfranchise felons have a very disproportionate racial effect.
However, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that laws disenfranchising felons do not violate the 14th or 15th Amendments. The Supreme Court ruled when considering the 1985 Hunter v. Underwood case regarding an Alabama law disenfranchising criminals that a state’s “action will not be held unconstitutional solely because it results in a racially disproportionate impact.” The Supreme Court also specifically said that laws disenfranchising felons do not violate the 14th Amendment in the 1974 case Richardson v Ramirez. Given that state laws which disenfranchised felons have been found by the Supreme Court to be consistent with these Amendments, Congress has absolutely no justification or authorization under either the 14th or 15th Amendments to pass this law.
The proposed federal law to force states to allow felons to vote is unconstitutional and morally reprehensible. A rapist should not have the same vote as his victim. The mafia, MS-13, the Bloods and the Crips should not be the constituencies which swing elections.
No. REQUIRE them to be armed.
I support this. I fully believe that one of the things the Dems will do is to find a way to criminalize behavior they don’t like, especially activities of their opponents. There may come a time when you look back and are thankful for this change.
They can, in their home.
If convicted felons (after release and after end of parole) should not be denied their “right” to vote, why are they denied their constitutional right to bear arms?
G.Gordon Liddy is not allowed to own any guns (even though his was a nonviolent offense).
He will brag at length about the firearms that MRS. Liddy owns and keeps about the house.
But I wonder if she could be charged with providing a felon access to firearms.
Only if Felons get all of their rights back. All or nothing folks.
I don''t think so. I saw a study somewhere (wish I had saved it) that said that the proportion of D voters was somewhere in the range of 60 - 80% (my best recollection of the results). The proportion of R voters was rather larger than I would have expected.
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