September, 25 2013, 02:01pm EDT
Voting Ban for Former Felons in Florida Violates Int'l. Human Rights Agreement
As the Florida Board of Executive Clemency meets today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida announces the submission of a Shadow Report detailing how Florida's policy of lifetime disfranchisement of former felons violates the U.S.'s human rights obligations.
TALLAHASSEE
As the Florida Board of Executive Clemency meets today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida announces the submission of a Shadow Report detailing how Florida's policy of lifetime disfranchisement of former felons violates the U.S.'s human rights obligations. The report, submitted to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights in preparation for an upcoming review of human rights in the United States', details how restrictions on voting rights for former felons in the U.S., including rights restoration restrictions passed by the Florida Board of Executive Clemency in 2011, violate the international rights agreement.
The report, entitled "Democracy Imprisoned," is co-authored by the ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Leadership Conference, the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and The Sentencing Project. It was submitted to the UN Committee on Human Rights to explain how many policies, including the disfranchisement of felons exacerbated by Governor Rick Scott and the members of the clemency board during their first meeting in the new administration, have put the United States in non-compliance with its obligations as a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
"The U.S. prides itself on having a participatory form of government, but the truth is that we still have a long way to go," stated ACLU of Florida Director of Legal Operations Nancy Abudu, who, in her previous role in the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, helped author the report. "Because of the difficulties that people in Florida and across the country have had when it comes to restoring their voting rights, we need to bring about real positive change. Voting is a human right, and barriers to voting in Florida are about to go under the international microscope for the whole world to see."
The UN Human Rights Committee is a body of experts established to monitor the ICCPR, an international treaty outlining nations' obligations to protect and preserve a wide range of human rights. As a signatory to the covenant, the United States is subject to periodic review for compliance with the ICCPR, with its next review coming in October of this year. This spring, after the ACLU of Florida and other voting and human rights organizations submitted a letter to the UN Human Rights Committee urging the committee to review the disfranchisement of people with past felony convictions in Florida, the body agreed to include felon disfranchisement on the list of issues it will include in its review of the United States.
Additionally, the ACLU was selected by the Committee as one of the NGOs to present evidence at the Committee's review of human rights in the U.S. this October. ACLU of Florida's Mid-Florida Regional Director Joyce Hamilton Henry will be among the ACLU staff reporting to the committee, giving testimony on how the Florida-specific issues laid out in the report constitute non-compliance with the ICCPR.
The report highlights how, as of 2010, Florida has disfranchised more than 1.5 million citizens due to a felony conviction, accounting for 10.42 percent of the state's voting age population and 23.3 percent of the state's African-American voting age population. New restrictions passed by Governor Rick Scott and the members of the clemency board in 2011 slowed the restoration of civil rights to a near complete stop: in 2007, approximately 115,000 grants of rights restoration were issued by then-governor Charlie Crist, but following the rules changes, it has all but stopped.
"The policies of the current administration, which mandates a 5 or 7 year wait coupled with excessive application and processing times which can take over 6 years, are over-burdensome on individuals trying to improve their lives," stated Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. "The restriction on rights restoration is counterproductive for rehabilitation, an affront to public safety, and its disproportionate impact on minority citizens shows that Jim Crow-style restrictions on democracy are not just a thing of the past in Florida."
The Report asks that the UN Human Rights Committee recommend that the U.S. Government publicly support the automatic restoration of voting rights to citizens upon their release from incarceration for felony conviction.
A copy of the report is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/democracy-imprisoned/
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Asked If He Must Uphold the US Constitution, Trump Says: 'I Don't Know'
"I'm not a lawyer," the president said in a newly aired interview.
May 04, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump refused in an interview released Sunday to affirm that the nation's Constitution affords due process to citizens and noncitizens alike and that he, as president, must uphold that fundamental right.
"I don't know, I'm not a lawyer," Trump told NBC's Kristen Welker, who asked if the president agrees with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement that everyone on U.S. soil is entitled to due process.
When Welker pointed to the Fifth Amendment—which states that "no person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—Trump again replied that he's unsure and suggested granting due process to the undocumented immigrants he wants to deport would be too burdensome.
"We'd have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials," Trump said, echoing a sentiment that his vice president expressed last month.
Asked whether he needs to "uphold the Constitution of the United States as president," Trump replied, "I don't know."
Watch:
WELKER: The 5th Amendment says everyone deserves due process
TRUMP: It might say that, but if you're talking about that, then we'd have to have a million or two million or three million trials pic.twitter.com/FMZQ7O9mTP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 4, 2025
Trump, who similarly deferred to "the lawyers" when asked recently about his refusal to bring home wrongly deported Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has unlawfully cited the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly remove undocumented immigrants from the U.S. without due process. Federal agents have also arrested and detained students, academics, and a current and former judge in recent weeks, heightening alarm over the administration's authoritarian tactics.
CNNreported Friday that the administration has "been examining whether it can label some suspected cartel and gang members inside the U.S. as 'enemy combatants' as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment."
"Trump has expressed extreme frustration with federal courts halting many of those migrants' deportations, amid legal challenges questioning whether they were being afforded due process," the outlet added. "By labeling the migrants as enemy combatants, they would have fewer rights, the thinking goes."
Some top administration officials have publicly expressed disdain for the constitutional right to due process. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, wrote in a social media post last month that "the judicial process is for Americans" and "immediate deportation" is for undocumented immigrants.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent wrote in a column Saturday that "Miller appears to want Trump to have the power to declare undocumented immigrants to be terrorists and gang members by fiat; to have the power to absurdly decree them members of a hostile nation's invading army, again by fiat; and then to have quasi-unlimited power to remove them, unconstrained by any court."
"The more transparency we have gained into the rot of corruption and bad faith at the core of this whole saga, the worse it has come to look," Sargent continued. "Trump himself is exposing it all for what it truly is: the stuff of Mad Kings."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Republicans Set to Give Self-Described 'DOGE Person' Keys to Social Security Agency
"A vote for Trump's Social Security Commissioner is a vote to destroy Social Security," warned one advocacy group.
May 04, 2025
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday is set to hold a confirmation vote for President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Social Security Administration—an ultra-rich former Wall Street executive who has aligned himself with the Elon Musk-led slash-and-burn effort at agencies across the federal government.
"I am fundamentally a DOGE person," Frank Bisignano told CNBC in March, amplifying concerns that he would take his experience in the financial technology industry—where he was notorious for inflicting mass layoffs while raking in a huge compensation package—to SSA, which is already facing large-scale staffing cuts that threaten the delivery of benefits for millions of Americans.
In an email on Saturday, the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works warned that Bisignano "is not the cure to the DOGE-manufactured chaos at the Social Security Administration."
"In fact, he is part of it, and, if confirmed, would make it even worse," the group added. "We're not going down without a fight. Republicans may have a majority in the Senate, but we're going to rally to send a message: A vote for Trump's Social Security Commissioner is a vote to destroy Social Security!"
"If Mr. Bisignano can get away with lying before he's even in place as commissioner, who knows what else he'll be able to get away with once he's in office."
Bisignano, the CEO of payment processing giant Fiserv, has been accused during his confirmation process of lying under oath about his ties to DOGE, which has worked to seize control of Social Security data as part of a purported effort to root out "fraud" that advocates say is virtually nonexistent.
As The Washington Post reported in March, Bisignano testified to the Senate Finance Committee that "he has had no contact" with DOGE.
"But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the claim is 'not true,' citing an account the senator said he received from a senior Social Security official who recently left the agency," the Post noted. "The former official... described 'numerous contacts Mr. Bisignano made with the agency since his nomination,' including 'frequent' conversations with senior executives."
Wyden pointed again to the former SSA official's statement in a floor speech Thursday in opposition to Bisignano, saying that "according to the whistleblower, Mr. Bisignano personally appointed his Wall Street buddy, Michael Russo, to be the leader of DOGE's team at Social Security."
The Oregon Democrat said Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee refused his request for a bipartisan meeting with the whistleblower to evaluate their accusations unless "we agreed to hand over any information received from the whistleblower directly to the nominee and the Trump administration."
"All Americans should be concerned that a nominee for a position of public trust like commissioner of Social Security is accused of lying about his actions at the agency and that efforts to bring this important information to light are being thwarted," Wyden said Thursday. "If Mr. Bisignano can get away with lying before he's even in place as commissioner, who knows what else he'll be able to get away with once he's in office."
"He could lie by denying any American who paid their Social Security taxes the benefits they've earned, claiming some phony pretense," the senator warned. "He could lie about how sensitive personal information is being mishandled—or worse, exploited for commercial use."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Chilling Attempt to Normalize Fascism': Groups Decry Trump Official's Arrest Threats
"We must not allow intimidation and authoritarian tactics to take root in our political system."
May 04, 2025
A coalition of advocacy organizations on Saturday expressed support for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and warned that the Trump border czar's threat against the Democratic leader marks a "dangerous escalation" of the administration's assault on the rule of law across the United States.
The groups—including All Voting Is Local and the ACLU of Wisconsin—said in a joint statement that Evers' guidance to state officials on how to handle being confronted by federal agents was "a prudent measure aimed at ensuring compliance with state and federal laws while protecting the rights of state employees."
The suggestion by Tom Homan, a leader of President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign, that Evers could be arrested for issuing such guidance undermines "the foundational principles of our democracy, including the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the right of state governments to operate without undue federal interference," the groups said Saturday.
"To threaten our governor over his legal directive is gross overreach by our federal government, and it is not occurring in a vacuum," they continued, warning that the administration's rhetoric and actions represent a "chilling attempt to normalize fascism."
"Similar occurrences are happening across the nation, including within our academic systems," the groups added. "If we do not reject these actions now, states and other institutions will only lose more and more of their autonomy and power. This is exactly why we underscore Gov. Evers' claim that this event is 'chilling.'"
The threats against Gov. Evers in Wisconsin undermine the foundational principles of our democracy: the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the right of state governments to operate without undue federal interference. We must reject this overreach. allvotingislocal.org/statements/w...
[image or embed]
— All Voting is Local (@allvotingislocal.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Trump administration officials and the president himself have repeatedly threatened state and local officials as the White House rushes ahead with its lawless mass deportation campaign, which has ensnared tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants and at least over a dozen U.S. citizens—including children.
In an executive order signed late last month, Trump accused "some state and local officials" of engaging in a "lawless insurrection" against the federal government by refusing to cooperate with the administration's deportation efforts.
But as Temple University law professor Jennifer Lee recently noted, localities "can legally decide not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement."
"Cities, like states, have constitutional protections against being forced to administer or enforce federal programs," Lee wrote. "The Trump administration cannot force any state or local official to assist in enforcing federal immigration law."
Administration officials have also leveled threats against members of Congress, with Homan suggesting earlier this year that he would refer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to the U.S. Justice Department for holding a webinar informing constituents of their rights.
During a town hall on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez dared Homan to do so.
"To that I say: Come for me," she said to cheers from the audience. "We need to challenge them. So don't let them intimidate you."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular