A federal court upheld a Mississippi law that confers a lifetime voting ban on felons convicted of certain crimes, The Hill reported. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a decision to strike down the law.
The law states that people convicted of felonies, including arson, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, forgery, or theft, are barred from voting for life. The plaintiffs in the case sued on the grounds that this violated the U.S. Constitution's 4th Amendment and 14th Amendment.
Thursday's 13-6 decision demonstrated that the full court disagreed. The decision stated that overturning the law "would thwart the ability of the State’s legislature and citizens to determine their voting qualifications, and would require federal courts overtly to make legislative choices that, in our federal system, belong at the State level," the majority opinion said.
“Do the hard work of persuading your fellow citizens that the law should change. The paramount lesson of the Constitution and Richardson is that the changes sought by Plaintiffs here can and must be achieved through public consensus effectuated in the legislative process, not by judicial fiat," the document went on.
The plaintiffs have argued that disenfranchising felons violates the Equal Protection Clause. "Denying broad groups of our citizens, for life, the ability to have a role in determining who governs them diminishes our society and deprives individuals of the full rights of representative government," the plaintiffs' attorney Jon Youngwood said in a written statement.
"We remain confident in this case, and our clients remain committed to ensuring that their right to vote is restored." Previously, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit had deemed it "cruel and unusual" punishment to strip voting rights.
"Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear national trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement," the ruling from the smaller panel had determined. The decision said that "severing former offenders from the body politic forever, Section 241 ensures that they will never be fully rehabilitated, continues to punish them beyond the term their culpability requires, and serves no protective function to society."
This portion was overruled by the opinion of the full court. "Every circuit court that has had the chance to invalidate felon disenfranchisement has rejected the opportunity," the later majority opinion said.
Mississippi has the strictest voting laws, with some 11% of the electorate deemed ineligible. While some complain about disenfranchising voters, this type of law could be a major story in the upcoming presidential election.
These rules about allowing convicted felons could become front and center during the presidential election in November. Former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in a Manhattan court in May, the Associated Press reported.
Although he is not a resident of Mississippi, Trump's home state of Florida has similar rules that would keep him out of the voting booth. As the GOP presidential nominee, it will become fodder for his opposition if the candidate can't even vote for himself.
However, the liberal love affair with criminals may work in his favor this time. Since Trump was convicted in a New York court, where the laws are more favorable to felons, he may get to cast a ballot after all and provide a photo op that Democrats will bristle at.
"If a Floridian’s voting rights are restored in the state of conviction, they are restored under Florida law," explained Blair Bowie from the Campaign Legal Center. It remains to be seen what Trump's sentence will be in New York, but it appears the conviction is more meaningless by the day.
Felons have broken the law in a serious way, and they have to pay the price, even if it is for life. Allowing them the same rights to vote as the general public is antithetical to justice.
