[Editorial]  Change Felony Voting Laws for All

February 1, 2012

Here's what continues to get us about former Gov. Haley Barbour's excuses for all those pardons. He keeps saying that he is a Christian and, thus, is concerned about the trustys and others whom he believes served enough time and now should be able to go vote and hunt and get professional licenses and the like. Our question to Barbour is: Where were you all these years?

We are living in a state with truly backward laws when it comes to allowing former felons—who have actually served their time and been released—to vote and fully participate in society. Many of them served time for drug sales and non-violent crimes. And a disparate number of them are non-white to boot.

By acting like he should get to play God and decide which criminals should go free, without regard to the parole board or the fears of the victims or their families, Barbour is once against foisting his position of privilege on the state's residents. In our state, as you can see from this issue, many families of all backgrounds end up with a criminal of some sort in their midst. Why is it that only certain criminals get their privileges back? And why are they disparately white and not the race that is over-represented in our prisons for lesser crimes?

It is time for serious criminal-justice reform in our state on all levels, and it needs to include a much smarter approach to giving rights back to individuals once they've served their time. Barbour is right about this: It doesn't make sense to return ex-cons to their communities without any way to make a living or become a member of society again. But that need doesn't only apply to his friends, or family members of his big donors and certainly not to criminals who have not yet served their time. This standard must not skip over the actual people who have done their time and bestow special privileges among those freed by the governor.

Yes, the Legislature should make our pardons system more intelligent and accountable, and not just up to one person's whims. But while they're at it, they need to look closely at our disenfranchisement laws that hurt everyone, and people of color even worse.

The 15th Amendment banned disenfranchisement laws that kept blacks from voting in the 19th century. Southern states, thus, began to disenfranchise blacks from voting by tailoring their laws to the crimes that blacks were most convicted for. That is, these laws are archaic and racist, and need to be changed. Gov. Barbour's attempt to circumvent the law on behalf of his friends proves that beyond a reasonable doubt.

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