Florida Republicans Are Trying to Rob Ex-Felons of Their Voting Rights, Again

It’s called a modern-day poll tax.
Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis in dramatic shadows
Joe Raedle

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In one of the big feel-good moments of last year's midterm elections, the voting rights of Florida ex-felons—a holy-shit 1.4 million people—were restored, thanks to a ballot initiative called Amendment 4. An overwhelming 64 percent of Florida voters said yes to the "Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative," heroically led by former felon Desmond Meade, and which covered all former felons except those convicted of murder or "sexual offenses."

But Florida Republicans weren't willing to just roll over and allow 1.4 million people to suddenly start voting. The modern GOP has done their damndest to frame voting as a privilege, not a right, especially when they have no reason to think those people will vote for their party.

On Tuesday, the state House voted on party lines to advance a bill that defines "sexual offense" in the broadest of possible ways, including "opening an adult entertainment store within 250 feet of a school," so that more ex-felons are prevented from voting. More dramatically, the bill requires that every single former felon pay back all court costs and fees before they can be eligible to vote again, even if that wasn't a stipulation of their sentencing. The move is expected to affect more than 500,000 people who would otherwise be able to vote again.

State Democrats are calling the Republicans' legislative move a modern poll tax: a fee often introduced in Southern states after the Civil War to keep newly enfranchised black men from voting.

Republicans, of course, took umbrage to their rather naked move to disenfranchise potential voters. "To suggest that this is a poll tax inherently diminishes the atrocity of what a poll tax actually was,” Tampa Republican Jamie Grant told the Tampa Bay Times. “All we’re doing is following statute."

Emory University professor Carol Anderson, author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy, disagrees.

"This is a poll tax, which is in violation of the Constitution," she said over the phone. "There is a constitutional amendment saying, 'There shall not be a poll tax.'"

Anderson says the modern Republican attempts to restrict Amendment 4 are part of a long history of state governments looking for ways around constitutional guarantees to black people's right to vote. "In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which basically said that black people, black men, can vote," she said. "And Florida's response to that, in 1868, was to institute a felony disfranchisement law, and then to craft a series of crimes that basically only black people were charged with and convicted of. And that was the way to short-circuit the Reconstruction Act of 1867."

Prior to Florida voters passing Amendment 4, more than 6 million Americans nationwide were permanently barred from voting because of past felony convictions. More than 2.2 million of them were black.

Florida's move to add more than a million people back to its voter rolls could have tremendous consequences in future presidential elections. Just last year, both the races for Florida senator and governor were close enough to trigger automatic recounts. Both Amendment 4 and Wednesday's announcement of a massive new voter-registration campaign, led by former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, are inspiring a lot of worry for Donald Trump's chances in 2020.

Even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell himself has made it clear, on the Senate floor, that expanded voting rights are a threat to Republican domination in government. It's no surprise that the GOP is looking back to before the civil rights era for ways to protect their minority rule. Felony disenfranchisement and poll taxes served the same purpose, which is to create legal ways to make sure that black people couldn't vote.

According to Anderson, the indignation over calling Amendment 4 what it is—a modern-day poll tax—is a common deflection. "These folks feign innocence," she said.