Today’s Links
Articles:
Democracy Docket – 5th Circuit Upholds Felony Disenfranchisement in Mississippi
ABA Journal – Mississippi scrubbed racial taint from its constitutional ban on voting by some felons, 5th Circuit rulesAssociated Press – Court: Mississippi can continue blocking felons from voting
Mississippi Center for Justice – Federal Court of Appeals Upholds Mississippi’s 1890 Felon Disfranchisement Law
Groups Taking Action:
Mississippi Center for Justice
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
We’re headed to Mississippi today, where last week an 1890 Jim Crow voter suppression constitutional provision was shockingly upheld by the Fifth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
When it was enacted, the constitutional provision stripping citizens of voting rights if they were convicted of certain crimes was openly discussed as an effort to keep Black citizens from voting. Originally, Section 241 of the Mississippi constitution disenfranchised citizens convicted of burglary, bribery, theft, arson, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy. In the 1960s, while Jim Crow restrictions were ongoing, burglary was removed & murder and rape were added.
It turned out that it was those additions which caused the court’s majority to ignore the motivation for the law. The majority opinion concluded that those changes were made without racial prejudice, so the provision could stand.
The opinion said, “We are not blind to the state’s deplorable history of racial discrimination . . . . but the overall social and political climate in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s fails to carry plaintiffs’ burden to prove that the 1968 amendment intentionally discriminated against Black voters.”
According to Democracy Docket, almost 11% of the state’s voting age population is disenfranchised as a result of this provision. Mississippi, which has the highest percentage of African Americans of any other state, 38%, has not elected a Black person to statewide office since 1890.
Links to articles and groups taking action are at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.
For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl
for AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.