Clemency board considers restoring rights for ex-felons

BRENT KALLESTAD

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet could clear a backlog of nearly 125,000 ex-felons seeking to have their civil rights restored at a clemency hearing Thursday, an administration spokeswoman said.

However, not all of the former felons will immediately regain their rights, which include voting.

"Those with the most serious offenses will still have to go through a hearing process before the governor and clemency board," Bush spokeswoman Alia Faraj said Wednesday. "But many other felons who have served their time will have their rights restored."

Randy Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute, said the board could repeal its rule requiring further hearings for some ex-felons and automatically restore the rights of the entire group, as Former Gov. Reubin Askew and the Cabinet did in 1975.

"These people paid their debt to society," Berg said Wednesday. "How many more pounds of flesh do we need to get from them?"

Florida is one of only a half dozen states that does not automatically restore civil rights to people who have served their prison terms or completed their sentence on a felony conviction.

A Tallahassee judge told the state last year to go back and assist those prisoners who completed sentences over a 10-year period ending in 2002, but were not helped by the state. The Department of Corrections failed to provide them with a simple one-page application to help the departing prisoners regain privileges such as voting.

The number of potential former felons denied the opportunity to vote has been part of several lawsuits since the 2000 presidential election when Republican George W. Bush carried Florida's decisive 25 electoral votes by a scant 537 votes of more than six million cast. The president is the older brother of Florida's governor.

Berg said 616,000 former felons were disenfranchised in the 2000 election in Florida.

Last month the secretary of state's office asked the 67 county supervisors to look at purging more than 47,000 names from voting rolls from a list provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

By law, supervisors must verify that the people are felons and the same people on voting lists and that they have not had their voting rights restored.

The counties then send a certified letter to the people, who need to respond within 30 days or else be automatically removed from the rolls.

The supervisors are also working to restore voters wrongfully removed from the rolls in past years during a time when many are trying to focus on voter education and training poll workers before Florida's Aug. 31 primary election.

Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson comprise the clemency panel. Bush and at least one of the Cabinet officials must be on the prevailing side of any vote.