[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 19 (Tuesday, February 2, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E97]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            URGENCY OF ADDRESSING FELONY DISENFRANCHISEMENT

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. TERRI A. SEWELL

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 2, 2016

  Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the first Restoration 
Tuesday of February to talk about the issue of felony 
disenfranchisement, an issue that is critical to voting rights in our 
country.
  Felony disenfranchisement dates back to before the Jim Crow era. It 
is inconsistent with the values we cherish most in our country today 
and it contradicts the narrative that we've moved beyond the sins of 
our past. The United States should not be a country where past mistakes 
have endless consequences with no opportunity for second chances.
  5.85 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of these 
laws. 4.4 million are out of prison, living in our communities, paying 
taxes, working, and raising families, yet they remain unable to vote, 
shut out from our democracy.
  Denying this right of citizenship further punishes individuals who 
re-enter our communities and counters the expectation that citizens 
have rehabilitated themselves following a conviction. The United States 
should not be a country where past mistakes have countless consequences 
with no opportunity for redress.
  My home state of Alabama is one of 12 states that do not 
automatically restore voting rights to people who have served their 
sentences. Alabama has one of the nation's highest disenfranchisement 
rates. Nearly a third of African American men in my home state have 
permanently lost their right to vote. Regardless of the amount of time 
they've been out of prison, they have been completely excluded from the 
electoral process.
  These state laws that bar 5.8 million Americans with felony 
convictions from voting date back to the late 19th and early 20th 
centuries. During the decades following passage of the Fifteenth 
Amendment, lawmakers across the country worked tirelessly to invalidate 
the black vote. As the Jim Crow era began to gain ground, these bans 
were strengthened.
  While poll taxes and literacy tests were effective tools in their 
arsenal, statutes allowing the subjective and permanent exclusion of 
large numbers of minorities from the democratic process were a 
particularly potent weapon in their efforts to undermine African-
American political power.
  Those who championed these bans were clear on their intent. In 1901, 
disenfranchisement in Alabama was extended to all crimes involving 
``moral turpitude''--applying to misdemeanors and even non-criminal 
acts. The president of the constitutional convention argued the state 
needed to avert what he called the ``menace of Negro domination.''
  In 2016 we are still operating under some of the same laws that were 
cornerstones of Jim Crow. Our nation's existing patchwork of federal 
law disfranchising people with criminal records perpetuates entrenched 
racial and socioeconomic discrimination. We've clearly fallen woefully 
short of achieving our ideals. We can and must do better.
  Rep. John Conyers has introduced a great piece of legislation to 
restore voting rights in federal elections to the millions of Americans 
who have been released from incarceration, but continue to be denied 
the right to vote. I encourage all of my colleagues, from both sides of 
the aisle, to support the Democracy Restoration Act of 2015, a bill to 
restore voting rights in federal elections to people who are out of 
prison and living in the community.

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