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If This Initiative Gets On The Ballot, Florida Could Be Changed Forever

If This Initiative Gets On The Ballot, Florida Could Be Changed Forever

A grassroots campaign to amend Florida’s constitution to restore the voting rights of upwards of 1.5 million Floridians who have been convicted of non-violent felonies and completed their sentences is poised to qualify for the November 2018 ballot.

By Wednesday, the Florida Department of State has certified more than 745,000 petition signatures of the 766,000 needed to get on the ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment also has to meet signature thresholds in 14 legislative districts and has done so in 12 of them, campaign organizers said.

“In total, we submitted well over 1.1 million petitions to the supervisors of elections offices all across the state, from Pensacola to Key West,” campaign manager Jackie Lee said on a conference call Tuesday. “And all the petitions, we think, where we needed to verify, were also all in by December 29th, to ensure that we could make the ballot. We all know they needed to be verified by February first. So because of all of your hard work, we had them in on time. We’re… actually even excited to submit a couple right after that date because they kept on coming in from all around the state.”

The felon rights restoration effort is one of America’s most important electoral initiatives in 2018. More than 10 percent of Florida’s voting-age population, 1.7 million residents, have lost their voting rights under the nation’s most punitive felon disenfranchisement law—a statute that has its roots in the Old South’s racist Jim Crow culture.

“This amendment restores the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation,” the legal petition states. “The amendment would not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who would continue to be permanently barred from voting unless the governor and cabinet vote to restore their voting rights on a case-by-case basis.”

Florida is the third most populous state, with slightly more than 20 million people. In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percent, which was slightly less than 113,000 votes, to win its 29 Electoral College votes. Should 60 percent of Floridians—the threshold for passage—who vote next fall approve the constitutional amendment, it could deeply alter the state’s politics as well as its criminal justice system.

The campaign’s organizers, led by Desmond Meade, a former felon who became a lawyer, are casting their effort as a redemption-steeped crusade to give a second chance to all of those who have done their time for non-violent crimes. In a teleconference organized by Floridians for a Fair Democracy Tuesday, he repeatedly emphasized this was a moral crusade and avoided any discussion of the political consequences.

“I want to make sure we are oriented right back where we started from,” Meade told the 150 activists, including clergy, on the call. “When each and every one of you made a decision to be involved in this campaign, it was based around people. It was based around the personal stories of your family members and your friends who were looking for second chances in Florida. And I think it is this orientation that has not only gotten us this far, but will take [us] across this finish line. It’s not about anything else. It’s not about politics. At the core of this, it’s about everyday all-American citizens, who just want a second chance.”

Meade’s framing, which reflects his life story, has resounded because Florida has so many ex-felons who cut across society. Only 30 percent are black, campaign organizers said, and a great many were victims of overzealous drug war prosecutions. Evidence of that deep resonance can be found in the fact that nearly a quarter-million of the petition signatures gathered were collected from volunteers, not paid circulators.

“We are very confident with moving forward with the campaign,” said Lee. “As of right now before the call, we are at 745,000 verified of the 766,200 that we need. So we are approaching that overall number and we are also verified in 12 of the 14 [legislative] districts that we need. So we are marching forward.”

The campaign’s next phase is more public education and growing their grassroots team, the organizers said. In coming days, Floridians for a Fair Democracy will launch a new campaign website and social media pages. More importantly, the organizers plan on calling all of the 1.1 million voters who signed their petition and urging them to talk to friends and family about the cause—as well as recruiting for the fall’s get-out-the-vote effort.

“At the end of the day, our campaign is not driven by how we think people will vote but whether or not they have the opportunity to vote after they have paid their debts to society,” Meade reiterated. “This campaign is not driven by race; it’s driven by an all-American message. Because we understand that this issue has impacted all lives from people from all walks of life… If we can keep the heart of what this campaign originated on, and knowing that this is what will take us across the finish line, I think that we be well positioned to transform this state and this country.”

When asked about opposition and roadblocks, Meade replied to stay focused on what they can control. For example, Florida’s Constitutional Revision Commission, which meets once every 20 years and is convening this month, has been discussing felon re-enfranchisement amid hundreds of other proposed changes. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who dramatically reversed his Democratic predecessor’s efforts to restore ex-felon voting, appoints about half of that body’s members.

As the Naples Daily News reported last fall as the voting rights restoration campaign was gaining ground and Constitutional Revision Commission was gearing up to meet, Scott has single-handedly thwarted felon re-enfranchisement.

“Scott’s directives require felons to wait an additional five to seven years after completing parole and probation before they can apply to have their rights restored,” it noted. “Offenders must be crime-free during those years, and the application is tedious. Felons must obtain certified copies of the charging document, judgment and sentence for each of their felony convictions. That process can be difficult for people whose crimes were committed decades ago. After being submitted, the application takes several years to process. Offenders who have committed more serious crimes must travel to Tallahassee for an in-person hearing before the clemency board. If rejected, applicants must wait two years before reapplying.”

Meade and other organizers emphasized their effort is aimed at giving non-violent offenders a second chance. Indeed, the vast majority of former felons in the state have not been convicted of murder or sexual assaults. The FBI’s 2016 crime statistics for Florida, for example, list 1,100 murders and 13,100 rapes. Those figures contrast with its nearly 1.7 million former felons, the figure given by the Washington-based Sentencing Project.

As the constitutional amendment is poised to clear November’s ballot access hurdle, Meade reminded everyone to keep their eyes on the prize—and on the narrative of personal redemption, paying civic debts and regaining full citizenship rights.

“We have no control or power over what the Constitutional Revision Commission does,” he told one caller who feared a competing proposal.

“What we are engaged in with this citizens’ initiative is one of the purest forms of democracy at work, right? We are hedging our bets on the people,” he continued. “This is a people’s campaign and regardless of what we think the Constitutional Revision Commission may or may not do… we are focusing primarily on the efforts of people like you and 1 million other Floridians that say this is the way they want to go.”

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s democracy and voting rights. He is the author of several books on elections and the co-author of Who Controls Our Schools: How Billionaire-Sponsored Privatization Is Destroying Democracy and the Charter School Industry (AlterNet eBook, 2016).
Venture Capitalist Insists ‘Six Californias’ Ballot Measure Is For Real

Venture Capitalist Insists ‘Six Californias’ Ballot Measure Is For Real

By Josh Richman, San Jose Mercury News

SAN MATEO, Calif. — Venture capitalist Tim Draper insisted again Monday that he’s not just joking about his proposal to split California into six states.

The secretary of state has now given Draper the go-ahead to start collecting signatures for his ballot measure, but the Silicon Valley tech investor offered mostly off-the-cuff answers at a news conference Monday when asked how he would run or fund a campaign that has generated plenty of media attention and a huge dose of “Is he really serious?” suspicion.

Draper said he hasn’t yet decided whether to try for this November’s ballot — for which he’d effectively have to gather almost 808,000 voters’ signatures by mid-April — or try to put it on the 2016 ballot.

“What I’m proposing here is to bring us closer to our government,” he said. “We are all better off with more local government — local government is more efficient, it’s more effective, it represents us better.”

In areas from schools to prisons to public infrastructure, “we spend the most and we get the least” in California, said Draper, 55, of Atherton. “Leaving California the way it is, the status quo, is a crime.”

His proposed measure would split California into six states, each with its own government; much of the San Francisco Bay Area, plus Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, would become the state of Silicon Valley.

The northernmost parts of the state would become the state of Jefferson, as some counties up there have wanted for years; some North Bay counties would become part of North California; Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield would be among Central California’s largest cities; Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara would wind up in West California; and San Diego would anchor South California.

Each new state would determine its own type of government; dividing California’s existing debt either would be negotiated among them or divided among them according to population.

If California voters approve the measure, splitting the state still would require action by Congress. “But once it gets passed, I believe there will be some strong momentum,” Draper said Monday, adding perhaps New York, Florida and Illinois might decide to split, too.

“I have worked on this for years,” he said, adding he has taken time off from his global venture capital firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, to make a contribution to society — and this is it. “This is something I just have to do, I just feel it.”

Draper, who spent $20 million on an unsuccessful school-voucher ballot measure in 2000, said he isn’t interested in running for governor of Silicon Valley or any other office real or imagined — a question raised by critics who say this proposed measure is little more than a ham-handed political publicity stunt.

Calfornia’s beauty and strength is rooted in its size and diversity, said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Pleasanton.) “Six Californias is a foolhardy plan to tear that apart,” Swalwell said.

Even getting on the ballot seems like a long shot, given that Draper said Monday he hopes to spend “as little as possible” to accomplish this. “I’ve got a whole bunch of people who are willing to raise money for this,” he claimed, refusing to name any.

Draper has until July 18 to gather signatures from 807,615 registered voters in order to put the measure on the ballot. But in order to put it on this year’s ballot, he’d basically have to submit signatures to county registrars by April 18 so they and the secretary and state can certify the measure by mid-year; otherwise, it’ll wait for 2016.

Corey Cook, a University of San Francisco political expert, said he’s “very skeptical” that this is going anywhere, particularly if voters view this through their own self-interest — for example, Central California would probably have the highest poverty rate of any state in the nation while Silicon Valley probably would become the richest.

Dan Newman, a veteran Democratic campaign consultant, called the idea “silliness,” though it could be a full-employment act for people like him. “The thought of California having a dozen U.S. Senate races and six gubernatorial campaigns does have a certain appeal to some of us,” Newman said.

Photo: Amy The Nurse via Flickr