Last week, the Supreme Court refused to review Florida's lifetime ban on voting rights for convicted felons, a case that would have had national implications for millions of would-be voters.
Justices declined to hear a challenge to Florida's 19th century ban, which applies to inmates and those who have served their time and been released. Felons are kept from voting in every state but Maine and Vermont, although restrictions vary. The issue of voter eligibility got renewed attention after the 2000 presidential election, which was decided by fewer than 600 votes in Florida. The Florida appeal had been closely watched, because lower courts have been fractured in similar voting cases. Minority and voting rights groups urged justices to hear the case.
"The court not only missed an opportunity to right a great historic injustice, it has shut the courthouse door in the face of hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised citizens," Catherine Weiss, the Brennan Center for Justice lawyer for the Florida ex-felons, said Monday.
The Florida law was contested in 2000 in Miami on behalf of people who have already completed their punishments, including probation or parole. Their appeal asked if restrictions can be challenged under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which removed barriers to black voters. One in 10 black Florida adults, not counting current prisoners, is barred from voting, the court was told. The case "involves the intersection of two rights that demand the highest level of constitutional protection: the right to participate in the political process and to be free of race discrimination in doing so," Weiss wrote in a filing.
Florida attorneys argued that states have authority to set their own policies. Congress, in enacting the voting law, did not have the power to "intrude so deeply into the sovereign right over every state to set qualifications for voting and to establish punishments for felons," Washington attorney Charles Cooper, representing Florida, said in the state's filing.
Florida has a process for felons to seek their voting rights, but there is no guarantee of success. The Supreme Court appeal was filed on behalf of more than 600,000 Florida felons. The court has refused to deal with this issue before. Nationwide, about 5 million people are ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction, according to The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group in Washington.