The Racist History of State Constitutions Taking Voting Rights from People Convicted of Crimes
My latest in the Brennan Center's State Court Report
On Thursday, the Brennan Center’s State Court Report published an essay I wrote on how Southern state constitutions have, since Jim Crow, denied voting rights to people convicted of felonies—and whether it is possible for subsequent constitutional amendments to purge the racist taint from those provisions.
The piece was inspired by a ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2022 that upheld Mississippi’s felony-disenfranchisement provision on the basis that a 1968 constitutional amendment removed any hint of racism from the 1890 Constitution’s materially identical provision. This ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but success there seems rather unlikely.
Rather than publish a separate essay this week, I’m instead passing on a link to my piece here—and I strongly encourage you to subscribe to the State Court Report, which has done a fabulous job of publishing really great work on state legal developments. I’ll be back next week with our regularly scheduled programming and a new piece.