Intercept: Thanks to Republicans, Nearly a Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote

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Thanks to Republicans, Nearly a Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote

https://theintercept.com/2015/12/09/floridas-ex-felons-struggle-to-regain-their-voting-rights/

Although the new constitutional protections forced lawmakers to present race-neutral justifications for the new voting laws, explicit racism inevitably seeped into the record during the frenzied drafting of the felony provisions. “The crime of wife-beating alone would disqualify 60 percent of the Negroes,” said John Field Bunting, a participant in Alabama’s 1901 constitutional convention, in reference to the felon disenfranchisement ordinance he had introduced. And, even a full century after Bunting’s remarks, proponents of felon disenfranchisement have still let invidious racial language slip while discussing the laws. “If it’s blacks losing the right to vote, then they have to quit committing crimes,” said a South Carolina state representative during a 2001 debate about changing the state’s disenfranchisement law.

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1. Kick for Florida...