Mississippi Today
Speaker White asks GOP leaders to explore restoration of voting rights to some people convicted of felonies
Top leaders in the Mississippi House are in the early stages of crafting a pathway for some people convicted of disenfranchising felonies to have their voting rights restored — the first such effort at the Capitol in more than a decade.
Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, told Mississippi Today that he has tasked Constitution Committee Chairman Price Wallace and Judiciary B Committee Chairman Kevin Horan with proposing legislation that would restore suffrage for Mississippians convicted of certain felonies.
“I've talked to some members in the House, and I haven't gotten any negative response,” said Wallace, a Republican from Mendenhall.
The two committee leaders at this stage have different ideas about which types of disqualifying felonies shouldn't be subject to the lifetime voting ban. But both agree that suffrage should be restored only after someone has completed the terms of their sentence.
Wallace said he was open to restoring suffrage for people convicted of nearly all nonviolent crimes. Horan, a Republican from Grenada, said he also wants to explore restoring suffrage to people convicted of some lower-level violent crimes, with the exception of people convicted of embezzling public money.
“I don't see why we wouldn't at least look into it,” Horan said. “But I haven't really thought that much about it at this stage.”
Under the Mississippi Constitution, people convicted of any of 10 felonies — including perjury, arson and bigamy — lose their voting rights for life. A 2009 opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General's Office expanded the list of disenfranchising felonies to 22.
About 37,900 names are on the Secretary of State's voter disenfranchisement list as of Jan. 29. The list, provided to Mississippi Today through a public records request, goes back to 1992 for felony convictions in state court. That number, however, may not be wholly accurate because no state agency tracks people once they are struck for the voter rolls. Studies commissioned by civil rights organizations in 2018 estimated between 44,000 and 50,000 Mississippians were disenfranchised.
READ MORE: Not all ex-felons are barred from voting in Mississippi, but no one is telling them that
For someone to have their suffrage restored, a lawmaker has to introduce a bill on their behalf, and two-thirds of lawmakers in both legislative chambers must agree to it. A person can also seek a gubernatorial pardon, though no executive pardon has been handed down since Gov. Haley Barbour's final days in office in 2011.
When the drafters of Mississippi's 1890 Constitution created a new framework for Mississippi's government, their stated intent was to reinstitute white supremacy following Reconstruction and bar Black citizens from holding office.
One way to accomplish that goal was to impose a lifetime voting ban on people convicted of certain crimes. The framers included crimes they believed African Americans were more likely to commit.
“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter … Mississippi's constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics,” Mississippi Gov. James K. Vardaman said at the time.
Civil rights organizations have filed two federal lawsuits over the constitutional provisions.
One group argued the list of disenfranchising crimes violated the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment, but federal courts rejected that argument.
Another group argued the lifetime voting ban violates the 8th Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. A panel of judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit initially agreed with the plaintiffs, but the full circuit is reconsidering the panel's ruling. That case is still pending, and attorneys have indicated the case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court regardless of the outcome at the appellate level.
READ MORE: AG Lynn Fitch to federal court: Mississippi law to prevent Black people voting was not punitive
Legislative efforts to reform the disenfranchisement law face an uphill battle. Changes to the state constitution bypass the governor, but they require approval by two-thirds of the members of both the House and Senate — the highest legislative threshold requirement on the books. Then, if lawmakers pass the measure, a majority of voters must approve the change on a statewide ballot.
Rep. Kabir Karriem, a Democrat from Columbus, has filed numerous bills over several years to grant people convicted of disenfranchising felonies a way to regain their voting rights, but his legislation has never gained serious traction in the Legislature. He told Mississippi Today on Wednesday that he is working with Horan and Wallace on the legislation.
“I'm encouraged by it, and it has the potential to impact many Mississippians,” Karriem said.
While numerous Democrats for years have filed proposals to change the process for people convicted of disenfranchising crimes to regain their voting rights, conservative lawmakers in recent years have also started to support the policy.
Republican Rep. Tracy Arnold of Booneville said he plans to introduce a resolution this year to change the state constitution to create a way for some convicted felons to have their suffrage restored.
Arnold, an ordained minister, said Christian principles of forgiveness influenced his decision to advocate for restoring voting rights to people who have completed their prison sentence.
“Once you've paid your debt to society, that should trigger a restoration of your rights,” Arnold said. “To me, real forgiveness is restoration.”
Former House Judiciary B Chairman Nick Bain, a Republican from Corinth, shepherded a proposal through the Legislature in 2022 that sought to clarify that people who have had a disenfranchising felony expunged from their criminal record would regain their voting rights. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed Bain's proposal, and the Legislature did not override the veto.
The last time the Legislature substantively addressed felony suffrage was when the House overwhelmingly passed legislation in 2008 to restore voting rights to all Mississippians convicted of felonies, except for those convicted of murder or rape.
The 2008 legislation later died in the Senate, where Phil Bryant — who would later become governor and not pardon a single Mississippian convicted of any crime — presided as lieutenant governor.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: The controversial day that Robert Kennedy came to the University of Mississippi
Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Edward Ellington talks with Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender about former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy's speech at the University of Mississippi less than four years after the riots that occurred after the integration of the school. Ellington, who at the time headed the Ole Miss Speaker's Bureau as a law school student, recalls the controversy leading up to the speech.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1961
MAY 20, 1961
A white mob of more than 300, including Klansmen, attacked Freedom Riders at the Greyhound Bus Station in Montgomery, Alabama. Future Congressman John Lewis was among them.
“An angry mob came out of nowhere, hundreds of people, with bricks and balls, chains,” Lewis recalled.
After beating on the riders, the mob turned on reporters and then Justice Department official John Seigenthaler, who was beaten unconscious and left in the street after helping two riders.
“Then they turned on my colleagues and started beating us and beat us so severely, we were left bloodied and unconscious in the streets of Montgomery,” Lewis recalled.
As the mob headed his way, Freedom Rider James Zwerg said he asked for God to be with him, and “I felt absolutely surrounded by love. I knew that whether I lived or died, I was going to be OK.”
The mob beat him so badly that his suit was soaked in blood.
“There was nothing particularly heroic in what I did,” he said. “If you want to talk about heroism, consider the Black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said ‘Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital.”
To quell the violence, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent in 450 federal marshals.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
2024 Mississippi legislative session not good for private school voucher supporters
Despite a recent Mississippi Supreme Court ruling allowing $10 million in public money to be spent on private schools, 2024 has not been a good year for those supporting school vouchers.
School-choice supporters were hopeful during the 2024 legislative session, with new House Speaker Jason White at times indicating support for vouchers.
But the Legislature, which recently completed its session, did not pass any new voucher bills. In fact, it placed tighter restrictions on some of the limited laws the state has in place allowing public money to be spent on private schools.
Notably, the Legislature passed a bill that provides significantly more oversight of a program that provides a limited number of scholarships or vouchers for special-needs children to attend private schools.
Going forward, thanks to the new law, to receive the vouchers a parent must certify that their child will be attending a private school that offers the special needs educational services that will help the child. And the school must report information on the academic progress of the child receiving the funds.
Also, efforts to expand another state program that provides tax credits for the benefit of private schools was defeated. Legislation that would have expanded the tax credits offered by the Children's Promise Act from $8 million a year to $24 million to benefit private schools was defeated. Private schools are supposed to educate low income students and students with special needs to receive the benefit of the tax credits. The legislation expanding the Children's Promise Act was defeated after it was reported that no state agency knew how many students who fit into the categories of poverty and other specific needs were being educated in the schools receiving funds through the tax credits.
Interestingly, the Legislature did not expand the Children's Promise Act but also did not place more oversight on the private schools receiving the tax credit funds.
The bright spot for those supporting vouchers was the early May state Supreme Court ruling. But, in reality, the Supreme Court ruling was not as good for supporters of vouchers as it might appear on the surface.
The Supreme Court did not say in the ruling whether school vouchers are constitutional. Instead, the state's highest court ruled that the group that brought the lawsuit – Parents for Public Schools – did not have standing to pursue the legal action.
The Supreme Court justices did not give any indication that they were ready to say they were going to ignore the Mississippi Constitution's plain language that prohibits public funds from being provided “to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.”
In addition to finding Parents for Public Schools did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, the court said another key reason for its ruling was the fact that the funds the private schools were receiving were federal, not state funds. The public funds at the center of the lawsuit were federal COVID-19 relief dollars.
Right or wrong, The court appeared to make a distinction between federal money and state general funds. And in reality, the circumstances are unique in that seldom does the state receive federal money with so few strings attached that it can be awarded to private schools.
The majority opinion written by Northern District Supreme Justice Robert Chamberlin and joined by six justices states, “These specific federal funds were never earmarked by either the federal government or the state for educational purposes, have not been commingled with state education funds, are not for educational purposes and therefore cannot be said to have harmed PPS (Parents for Public Schools) by taking finite government educational funding away from public schools.”
And Southern District Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam, who joined the majority opinion, wrote separately “ to reiterate that we are not ruling on state funds but American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds … The ARPA funds were given to the state to be used in four possible ways, three of which were directly related to the COVID -19 health emergency and one of which was to make necessary investments in water, sewer or broadband infrastructure.”
Granted, many public school advocates lamented the decision, pointing out that federal funds are indeed public or taxpayer money and those federal funds could have been used to help struggling public schools.
Two justices – James Kitchens and Leslie King, both of the Central District, agreed with that argument.
But, importantly, a decidedly conservative-leaning Mississippi Supreme Court stopped far short – at least for the time being – of circumventing state constitutional language that plainly states that public funds are not to go to private schools.
And a decidedly conservative Mississippi Legislature chose not to expand voucher programs during the 2024 session.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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