On the eve of John Lewis's death, a cruel Supreme Court blow to his legacy
On the day before John Lewis died, the Supreme Court made clear that the life’s work of the Democratic congressman from Georgia remained unfinished. Lewis marched and protested and suffered brutal beatings to help make the vote available to all citizens; President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eight days after the young Lewis was clubbed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. In the years after, Lewis campaigned and lobbied and pressed to see that the right enshrined in that measure was translated into reality for millions who were disenfranchised. He made enormous progress — just not enough.
That cruel fact was brought home Thursday, when the justices rebuffed an effort to restore voting rights to nearly a million felons in Florida who have served their sentences and, under an amendment to the state constitution adopted in 2018, should have had their franchise restored. But the Florida legislature, backed up by the state Supreme Court, interpreted the amendment — which conditioned the restoration of voting rights “upon completion of all terms of sentence, including parole or probation” — to include payments of fines, fees and restitution.
A federal-district court barred Florida from enforcing the law while it was being challenged, allowing felons who had served their sentences to register to vote in November. The judge said the state’s “pay-to-vote system” requiring people to pay fines they could not afford amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax. But the full 11th Circuit — where seven of the 12 active judges are Republican nominees, including six Trump-appointed judges, stepped in to lift that order, no explanation given. On Thursday, the Supreme Court refused to get involved.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, stated the consequences clearly in the first sentence of their dissent: “This Court’s order prevents thousands of otherwise eligible voters from participating in Florida’s primary election simply because they are poor.” In short, they added, “Under this scheme, nearly a million otherwise-eligible citizens cannot vote unless they pay money.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-the-eve-of-john-lewiss-death-a-cruel-supreme-court-blow-to-his-legacy/2020/07/19/549a68d8-c9c4-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html
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