MS lawmakers working to give voting rights to ex-cons: "It's just frustrating"

When Benny Ivey, co-founder of Strong Arms of Mississippi, went to prison for the first time in the 1998, losing his right to vote wasn’t among his chief concerns.

Fourteen years since his final day in prison, Ivey turned his life away from crime and has been running a program to steer minors in the Jackson metro area from his past life. Yet, he still cannot vote in local, county, statewide or national elections because of the crimes he committed years ago. Now, more than 26 years after his first stint of incarceration, he cares very much.

“My last conviction was almost 20 years ago,” said Ivey, who acknowledges he was convicted on burglary and drug-related charges. “I help run a youth program. We get referrals from courts; they trust me with children, and they trust me to mentor these kids and get them on the right path. I'm a licensed plumber with a business. I own my own home, all these things, but my voice doesn't matter when it comes to who I want to vote for, and it is frustrating.”

He isn’t the only one frustrated.

Over the last three years, according to the Mississippi Legislature website, more than 42 suffrage bills have been filed in both the Mississippi House and Senate, but all died in committee before a proper debate on the subject could be had. There were also 47 individual requests for suffrage from people seeking their voting rights back, but only seven were approved, and they were not signed by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

According to several sources that spoke with the Clarion Ledger, new Republican leadership in several committees is now open to the idea of expanding suffrage back to previously convicted felons, and some, such as new Republican House Speaker Jason White, are also positive about the legislation, House Constitution Committee Chair Price Wallace, R, said.

“I actually did talk with some folks before session ever started one day over lunch, and once I got up here and then became chairman of the Constitution Committee and started seeing these bills come out, I sat down with Speaker White about it and he's like, ‘Yeah, let's look at that.’”

See other bills in the House Abortion off table as MS House passes ballot initiative reform. See what else is restricted

Wallace told the Clarion Ledger that of the nine bills filed in the House, he is working with Lowndes County Rep. Kabir Karriem, D, on a bill that would remove disenfranchisement for only some nonviolent offenders once sentences are complete, as well as provide the chance for some crimes to be removed from a person’s record after five years. He plans to introduce that bill to his committee next week.

“I know some folks that don't have their rights and wish they could have, and this bill is just the way that we hope to get to do this,” Wallace said.

Judiciary B Committee Chair Kevin Horan, R, also said he is open to returning suffrage to nonviolent offenders, but would also look at some low level violent crimes as well, with the exception of people convicted of embezzling public money.

Eight of the nine filed bills on suffrage were also sent to Horan’s committee, including Karriem’s, meaning both groups of House members will need to agree on the legislation before it hits the House floor.

“You are disengaging someone from being involved in what's going on in their community, engaged in issues, so, if you are going to tax somebody, those individuals that I would say are qualified, nonviolent offenders ought to have some say so,” Horan said.

When contacted for comment Feb. 8, Speaker White told the Clarion Ledger to speak with Wallace, but he did not respond to several requests for further comments after Wallace said White supported the proposed legislation, which has yet to have been filed as of Friday morning.

What is disenfranchisement?

In 1890, Mississippi lawmakers rewrote the state constitution, and it included new laws such as disenfranchisement. At the time, then future Gov. James K. Vardaman said those laws were to reassert white supremacy in the state.

Some of those laws included stripping suffrage from criminals for several felonies. Legislators at the time wrote in 10 crimes they believed Black people were more likely to commit, but have since added 12 more offenses, thanks to a Mississippi Attorney General’s opinion in 2009.

As of 2022, The Sentencing Project, a national research and advocacy organization, reported that about 9% of the state’s eligible voting population is currently disenfranchised, or about 235,000, which includes disenfranchisement from both in state and federal elections. It also found a large portion of those people are Black.

For those seeking to regain suffrage, there are currently only two options. People can petition a legislator to file a bill on their behalf to restore suffrage, which must pass both chambers by a two thirds majority, or they can ask the governor for an official pardon. The last gubernatorial pardon came in 2011 by former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour.

Ivey was hoping to be a rare individual to receive a pardon. Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, introduced a bill in 2021 to have Ivey's voting rights reinstated. In that process, the Legislative Services Office had to verity all of Ivey's background. That bill died in committee.

Wallace said the bill he is working on with Karriem aims to eliminate much of the individual petitions, while also giving any previous felon with certain nonviolent offenses the chance to regain voting rights.

“This isn’t a white or Black issue,” Wallace said. “This is about giving suffrage back to those who have served their time.”

Karriem told the Clarion Ledger in an interview Wednesday that this represents the first big push he has seen in recent years to restore suffrage to a large number of people, and he is happy to tackle several issues for people wanting to restore their rights, as well as clear their criminal record.

“It's a pretty mammoth bill because you're combining two phases in it,” Karriem said. “That's the expungement part and voting rights part that have a lot of intricate details so far that that we've been putting inside the bill. It won't cover all nonviolent offenses, but for the most part it will.”

Other bills for suffrage and efforts to remove disenfranchisement

Democratic Senators David Blount and Bradford Blackmon also filed bills earlier this month that would eliminate disenfranchisement statewide, nonviolent or not.

“When they're discharged from the Department of Corrections, we asked that person to go out and and become a productive citizen and get a job and pay taxes, and that person should have the right to vote when they've completed the terms of their sentence,” Blount said.

Senate Elections Committee Chair Jeremy England, where both those bill have been sent, told the Clarion Ledger he is open to at least considering those bills.

But lawmakers in the Mississippi State Capitol aren’t the only ones fighting to give suffrage. Over the last several years, two civil rights organizations have filed federal lawsuits over the state’s constitutional provision on disenfranchisement.

One group of disenfranchised people 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 Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. A panel of judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit initially agreed with the plaintiffs, but the full circuit is reconsidering the panel’s ruling. That case is still pending, and it could still possibly be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

See more about this case Mississippi voting rights case is argued at US appeals court

Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: MS lawmakers hope to restore felon voting rights