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The Felon Vote; Iowa politics...
Topic Started: Jun 21 2005, 12:08 PM (130 Views)
Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
From the Des Moines Register:


By DAVID YEPSEN


There's one overlooked reason Gov. Tom Vilsack is issuing a blanket order restoring voting rights to all Iowa felons who've completed their sentences.

Politics.

• It's an attempt to increase the number of Democratic voters in the state, thereby tipping close elections in 2006 and 2008.

• It's designed to make him look good with minority-rights organizations. Those groups were offended when he signed an English-only bill before his 2002 re-election campaign. He'll need their support when he runs for president or seeks some other role on the national Democratic stage.

• It's the reason most Republicans are squawking. While the governor has found a couple of token GOPers to support him on this, most don't, and it's unlikely they can do much about it because a governor has clear powers to restore voting rights.

Some background: Since 1992, the state has tracked an estimated 48,000 convicted felons in Iowa whose right to vote has not been restored. That doesn't include untracked thousands before 1992. All will automatically have their voting franchise restored by this change on July 4. This isn't a pardon. It doesn't automatically restore the right to carry a firearm, and felons must still pay their fines or make restitutions.

It's just about votes.

It's easily more than 50,000 people. Of them, a disproportionate number are from minority and lower-income groups. That means they are demographically more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. (Which is why left-of-center groups are praising Vilsack and why you can look for Democrats to soon begin felon voter-registration drives.)

These new voters could have a huge impact on the outcome of close elections in Iowa, a toss-up state where big elections often are decided by only a handful of votes. According to the latest registration figures, Iowa has 610,000 Republicans, 606,000 Democrats and 752,000 independents.

If only half of these felons bother to exercise their new franchise in coming elections, they could change outcomes. For example, President Bush carried Iowa in the last presidential election by only 10,059 votes. In open congressional seats, like Jim Nussle's in northeast Iowa, outcomes are often decided by a few thousand votes. Adding a few thousand felon voters in Black Hawk County alone could assure Democrats of winning it.

The Iowa Senate is evenly divided, 25-25, between the two parties. In the House, Republicans hold a 51-49 edge over Democrats. Since Iowa always has a half-dozen legislative seats that are decided by fewer than 1,000-vote margins, the addition of only a few new voters in several of these districts could easily tip control of the Legislature to the Democrats.

So let's forget all this high-minded talk about people having paid their debts to society, rehabilitation and humanity. This is all about winning elections.

If all those other things were so important, why did Vilsack wait almost seven years as governor before he acted? If he were all that concerned about integrating criminals back into society, he would have taken action earlier in his term - not when he doesn't have to face voters for re-election.

And he wouldn't have dropped his little political bomb on a Friday afternoon, traditionally a time when politicians unload controversial stories in the hope they'll get downplayed in the weekend news void.

Yes, indeed. We've seen quite a transformation in the Tom Vilsack who while running for governor wanted to lock up all the meth dealers for 99-year prison terms to the one who now wants to hurry many of these same people to the polling booth.

His action may or may not be good corrections policy. That depends on your view of the criminal-justice system and how permissive you want to be in rehabilitating criminals.

But what about their victims? Perhaps a future governor will rescind Vilsack's order and decide that before felons get their voting-rights back, they must first pay all those fines and make restitutions to their victims.

Repaying your debt to society involves more than completing a prison term.



The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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