Will Florida forge a new path on felon disenfranchisement?

As reported in this New York Times article, Florida’s new Governor is seeking to move the state in a dramatic new direction on the issue of felon disenfranchisement.  Here are details:

Hinting that a remarkable turnaround in state policy was near, Gov. Charlie Crist said Monday that he hoped to persuade members of the Florida cabinet this week to end the practice of stripping convicted felons of their right to vote.   Florida is the most populous of three states whose constitutions require withdrawal of voting rights from all convicted felons, and it has the nation’s largest number of disenfranchised former offenders. The other two states are Kentucky and Virginia. 

Felons in Florida who have served their prison and probation time can apply to have their voting rights reinstated, but the process can be time consuming and complex. Only a few hundred have their rights restored each year in Florida, where the American Civil Liberties Union says 950,000 remain disenfranchised. 

Mr. Crist, a Republican, said that to win the support of some cabinet members, he might require former felons to pay whatever restitution they owe to victims before regaining their rights. Some civil rights groups, including the A.C.L.U., oppose such a compromise, but Mr. Crist said he had little choice.  “I want to do the doable,” he told reporters in Tallahassee.  “I’m pushing as hard as I can to get as much as I can, but there’s a point beyond which I cannot go.”

Only a constitutional amendment could formally end the ban, but under state law, the governor and cabinet — who also make up the state clemency board — could grant blanket clemency to everyone who completes their sentence. Mr. Crist needs two of the three cabinet members to sign off on the plan….

“I believe in my heart that everybody deserves a second chance,” Mr. Crist said.  “And I’m hopeful that maybe later this week we’ll have an opportunity to restore civil rights for Floridians and give them that right to vote.”

If Governor Crist can blaze a new path on this issue in Florida, I may be a little less grumpy that his state’s flagship university keeps beating my state’s flagship university on the playing fields.