Tag: voting rights

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TN AG Moves to Close NAACP Suit On Voting Rights

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

A lingering legal battle that was poised to be settled this summer, leading to a clearer pathway for tens of thousands of Tennesseans to restore their voting rights, has instead reignited into a contentious court fight with no certain outcome ahead of the next presidential election.

One in five Black voting-age Tennesseans lacks the right to vote due to a past criminal conviction — likely the highest rate of African-American disenfranchisement in the nation, according to the Sentencing Project. Overall, nearly 10 percent of the Tennessee electorate — 470,000 people — have lost their right to vote due to convictions.

In a lawsuit filed in December 2020, the Tennessee Conference of the NAACP and five residents denied the right to vote alleged Tennessee officials failed to follow state laws that allow individuals to legally restore their voting rights after serving their sentences and completing parole. Instead, the state implemented inaccessible and opaque processes that impede legal pathways for restoring rights, the lawsuit claimed.

Close to settling key claims in the case over the summer — potentially ahead of high profile local elections in Nashville, Memphis, and for state office — attorneys for the state abruptly broke off talks in late July, catching lawyers for the NAACP by surprise, legal filings show. Then, on August 2nd, lawyers for the Tennessee Attorney General filed motions asking a judge to reject the claims entirely.

Tennessee Supreme Court rules in felony voting rights case

Tennessee Lookout

“The Elections Division, TDOC, and Governor’s office had the opportunity this summer to create accessible, transparent, and uniform procedures to allow the over 470,000 disenfranchised Tennesseans a fair shot at getting their voting rights restored and rejoining their communities as full citizens,” Blair Bowie, an attorney representing the NAACP with the DC-based Campaign Legal Center, said Friday.

“Instead, they blew up the voting rights restoration system entirely and imposed effectively permanent disenfranchisement on July 21st,” she said. 

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Attorney General did not respond to emailed questions on Friday. 

The breakdown in the federal case came shortly after a June 29th ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court against Ernest Falls, who was denied the right to vote in Tennessee in 2020 after receiving clemency in Virginia for a decades-old crime. 

The Supreme Court ruled that Falls, also represented by the Campaign Legal Center, was required to show he had paid all outstanding court costs, restitution and child support obligations in Virginia to establish his voting rights — in addition to proof of the Virginia clemency.

Secretary of State Mark Goins then issued a memo that incorporated expanded requirements for all state residents seeking to restore their voting rights — regardless of where their conviction took place. In addition to the process of demonstrating they, too, had paid court costs and other financial obligations related to their crime, in-state residents must now show they also “have been pardoned by a Governor, U.S. President, or other appropriate authority of a state or have had their full rights of citizenship restored as prescribed by law.”

The memo wasn’t shared with attorneys for the NAACP who had been involved with them in settlement negotiations for months, legal filings said.

“Plaintiffs learned from public reporting that Defendant Goins had that day issued guidance to county election officials changing his interpretation of the State’s requirements for individuals with felony convictions to restore their voting rights,” court records said.

In seeking a ruling dismissing major elements of the case, state lawyers have argued in motions for summary judgment that the five individuals names in the suit lack standing in court.

Tennessee does have a process in place for restoration of rights, one that provides a pathway to restoring rights while preserving election integrity, they argued.

“Tennessee does not reject all voter registration forms on which the applicant affirmed that they have a felony conviction,” the state’s filings said. “Moreover, Tennessee’s practice is rationally related to its legitimate interest in combatting voter fraud, safeguarding voter confidence, and ensuring accurate record keeping.”

The Sentencing Project’s national voting rights study found that that 3,415 Tennessee voting-age citizens have been granted Certificates of Restoration since 2016 — fewer than 1 percent of those with prior felony convictions estimated to be eligible to vote under Tennessee law.

The NAACP lawsuit argues that the current administration of voting rights restoration certificates violate the U.S. Constitution’s due process and the equal protection rights.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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Opinion The Last Word

White Tears and ‘Current Voters’

Mitch McConnell (Photo: Wikipedia)

“The concern is misplaced because if you look at the statistics, African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell at a recent press conference.

Even if Mitch McConnell’s viral gaffe last week is as innocent as he claims it to be, the stench of something deep — the unexamined racist fear and shame at the core of GOP policy — is unavoidably noticeable: There’s “them” and there’s “us” and never the twain shall meet. And we’ll make sure of that. (Shhhh … don’t tell anyone.)

What’s fascinating to me is the fact that blatant racism — manifested in voter-suppression laws over the years, gerrymandering, and, more recently, hysteria over the teaching of actual history in the public schools — can no longer be put forth publicly and unapologetically as The Truth, as it was for most of American history. Politicians and public figures can no longer declare things like “This country must be ruled by white people. … Negro suffrage is an evil,” as a Mississippi judge named Solomon Calhoon wrote in 1890. Nowadays, racism has to be covered up with clichés and political correctness and, in particular, white victimhood.

The prevailing right-wing dogma, at least on the surface, is not that white people are no longer just plain better than Black people; white people are victimized by people of color. “Come on,” they cry, “judge us by the content of our character, not the color of our skin.”

Here’s Tucker Carlson, for instance, quoted by The New York Times columnist Charles Blow, explaining “white replacement theory” on his Fox News show last year as a Democratic plot “to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters, from the third world. … Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter.”

Not a white voter, simply a “current” voter. This is the impact the Civil Rights Movement has had on right-wing Republicanism.

And then there’s critical race theory (CRT). In the past year, according to Education Week, 36 states have scapegoated this otherwise unknown academic concept, introducing legislation or taking other steps to ban whatever-it-is from being taught in public schools. The state of Virginia has even established a special tip line that parents can call to report that their kids’ school has been feeding them CRT — which means, of course, teaching actual American racial history. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to go even further, giving parents the power to sue the school if it has the nerve to teach CRT.

As I say, whatever that means. Education Week points out that there’s almost no clarity about what this might mean, and “leaders in states where these laws have passed have reported widespread confusion about what kind of instruction is and is not allowed.” Many teachers fear the rules can be broadly interpreted and amount to banning “any discussion about the nation’s complicated past or the ongoing effects of racism in the present day.”

“This isn’t an idle fear,” the report goes on. Last June, for instance, “a parents’ group in one Tennessee district challenged the use of an autobiography of Ruby Bridges, who in 1960 was one of the first Black children to integrate an elementary school after Brown v. Board of Education. The parents complained that in depicting the white backlash to school desegregation, the book violated the state’s new law in sending the message that all white people were bad and oppressed Black people.”

This is now the national divide, apparently. Jim Crow suddenly wails in anguish. As a bill in the Florida Senate puts it, a student “should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” Note: Such a bill wasn’t introduced in 1890 or 1930. I wonder why?

For me, this opens a deep sense of wonderment. Mostly it opens up some profound questions about how the country can and should face not just its past but also its future. While there may be a lot of blame and guilt to spread around regarding the nation’s pre-civil rights era, addressing the future requires a larger, more complex perspective. It’s not about blaming, but healing … and changing.

The anti-CRT crowd wants to keep the clichés in place, as though “one nation, under God, yada, yada” is all that’s needed to guide us into the future. Of course, the military-industrial complex knows there’s more to it than that. Waging war, staying dominant, staying wealthy — these are not simple tasks! It’s not about saluting the flag and revering the Founding Fathers. It’s about passing gargantuan military budgets. And it’s also about keeping as much of the public as possible (in the words of Tucker C.) “obedient” — that is, patriotic, believing that the USA is the greatest country in the world and only kills evil terrorists plus occasional collateral bystanders.

If CRT were actually taught in schools — not in order to spew shame on some, but to open everyone’s minds, to grasp the nature of hatred, dehumanization, and dominance, and create a future that transcends our past — a lot more would be put at risk than some people’s psychological distress.

The meaning of nationalism itself would have to change. And suddenly everyone becomes a participant in creating the future.
Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound.

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Politics Beat Blog

Two Bills Would Quash Legal Challenges to State Authority


The Republican campaign against the kind of expanded voting rights that produced Democratic victories in November has moved into overdrive in the Tennessee legislature, where two far-reaching bills are on the verge of passage.

One bill is SB915/HB1072 (Kelsey, Curcio), which would effectively immunize state government against legal actions by local jurisdictions — or at least establish a barrier prohibiting immediate injunctive relief for plaintiffs.

Another bill, SB868/HB1130 (Bell, Farmer) would create a statewide three-member super-Chancery Court charged with hearing any legal action questioning state actions, including statutes, executive orders, or administrative actions.

Both bills are avowedly aimed at results, both in court and at the polls, that are likely to have favored Democratic candidates and causes. Specifically cited as justification for the two measures is the decision by Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle, in June 2020, calling for extension of mail-in absentee voting in view of the raging coronavirus pandemic.

Lyle imposed an injunction on the state’s enforcement of more restrictive absentee-voting requirements, after which the Secretary of State’s office first delayed its response, then fought the injunction all the way to the state Supreme Court, which, in its ruling, offered some mitigations of the injunction’s effect. But considerable expansion of mail-in voting would still be the end product for the election of 2020.

Almost certainly, this is what Rep. Michael Curcio (R-Dickson), House sponsor of HB 1072, was referring to when, in committee deliberations,  he cited “recent political history” as a reason for passing his bill, which would, in the case of similar future challenges to state authority, mandate an automatic stay of any possible injunctive relief, pending ultimate resolution of the dispute on appeal.

In the case of the 2020 mail-in voting issue, such a law would, because of time restraints imposed by the election calendar, have prevented the possibility of expanding voters’ accessibility to absentee voting before all possible appeals by the state could be heard.

Though state Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) pointed out as much during debate in the House Civil Justice Committee, Republican votes carried the bill through both there and in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the bill is scheduled for final votes on the floors of both the House and the Senate on Monday, April 26.

The situation is less imminent with SB868/HB1072, which still must undergo some committee scrutiny. This bill would establish a three-member state Chancery Court, in effect, to hear all legal challenges to state authority. One member each would represent the state’s western middle, and eastern Grand Districts, but all three judges would be elected statewide.

If the bill passes, Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, would appoint the three initial judges, who would serve until the elections of 2022, which would establish eight-year terms.

As of now, such litigation is heard in Nashville Chancery Court because of that court’s proximity to state government. The proposed three-member state Chancery Court could hear cases in Knoxville, Nashville, or Jackson.

There is little mystery as to the GOP sponsors’ motives for the legislation. As Senate sponsor Mike Bell (R-Riceville) declared in committee deliberations, “Let me just tackle head on why we’re here with this issue. Why should judges who are elected by the most liberal district in the state….Why should they be the ones judging cases?” Bell, who had specifically cited last year’s mail-in ballot issue decided by Nashville Chancellor Lyle, continued that the voters of Davidson County ”in election after election choose members of one party.” There are, he said,  “only two [elected] Republicans  in Davidson County.”

Bell rounded to his point. “Don’t tell me politics don’t affect judicial issues. They do. I want judges who reflect the political makeup of the state…. I completely reject the idea that judges don’t reflect a political philosophy. I am no way rejecting the idea of partisanship in judicial matters. Partisanship should reflect the voters of the state.”

Senator Katrina Robinson (D-Memphis) would object to this logic in the senate Judiciary Committee, as Representative Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis), among others, would in House Civil Justice Committee. But there you have it, presented in all candor and nakedness: The bill is designed to make sure that legal challenges to state authority are heard by a Republican-dominated tribunal — which is what the three-member state Chancery Court would almost inevitably be.

In tandem with the previously mentioned bill, SB915/HB1072, the bill would, if successful, present another barricade to the likelihood of success for progressive or local challenges to state authority. Ironically, given her status as a catalyst for the two measures, Chancellor Lyle of Nashville was originally appointed by Republican Governor Don Sundquist.

As indicated, SB915/HB1072, which guarantees automatic stays of litigation against the state, is due for floor action in both chambers on Monday night. The fate of SB868/HB1130, the Chancery Court legislation, still awaits action in the Finance committees of both chambers.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Hail, Finlandia!

Do you know how many health-care-related bankruptcies there were in Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Chile, Canada, and Finland last year? Zero.

Do you know how many health-care-related bankruptcies there were in the United States last year? Try 643,000, give or take a few.

All over this country, people are rationing their medicines, putting off going to the doctor, putting off paying the rent, losing their cars, ruining their credit, burning through their retirement funds, and losing their homes. Why? Because our health-care “system” is broken. The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t have some form of universal health care. We’re the only First World country that shoves people into poverty because they have the misfortune to get sick.

In the countries I listed above, citizens and their governments recognize that health care is a right, not a privilege tied to one’s income level, not something that can be denied by an insurance company or made so exorbitantly expensive that it bankrupts hundreds of thousands of us each year. It’s insane. And yes, it’s sick.

If all these other countries have figured out how to provide health care at a reasonable cost, why can’t we? It’s way past time to get serious about changing our health-care system from one driven by the profit motive to one created to serve all of us. A pill that costs a penny to produce shouldn’t cost $300 to buy. An insulin medicine that hasn’t changed in 15 years shouldn’t quintuple in cost. A life-saving Epipen that costs pennies to make shouldn’t increase in price six-fold, simply because the manufacturer decided to extort people to raise its stock price.

It was interesting to me to hear President Trump — while in “Pleasure,” California, for a post-fire photo-op — cite Finland for its forest-management policies. Nevermind that, as usual, he was babbling like Cliff Clavin, uttering stream-of-consciousness policy pronouncements with no basis in fact. Focus instead on the idea of his using Finland as a model. If Trump wants to cite Finland as an example of good governance, I’m down with the president. Finland has a great public health-care system, sensible gun-control laws, and a burgeoning middle class. So, yeah, let’s emulate Finland, even if it means we have to start raking the Sierras.

The country voted overwhelmingly for change in the midterms, both in terms of the popular vote and in the blue wave that transformed the makeup of the House of Representatives. Now it’s time to start rolling back the divisive, corporate-driven agenda that has shaped the country since the GOP took control of the House and Senate in 2010. So much damage has been done. Environmental regulations have been rolled back. Immigration reform has been abandoned in favor of hateful fear-mongering — the absurd “caravan” scam being the most recent example. And thanks to this administration’s horrific immigration policies, we now have 10,000 children living in cages, and no real plan to fix the problem.

It’s time to turn back the tide of dumb-assery, as the country wakes from the Trump fever-dream and realizes it’s been hustled by a dim-witted, self-absorbed grifter.

We need to focus like a laser on our election system, peeling back the layers of legislation put in place by GOP-led state governments to make voting more difficult. We need to form a bipartisan system for creating electoral districts, in order to rid ourselves of the partisan gerrymandering that allows the minority party to control the levers of power in so many states.

Locally, we’re already seeing how a change in the power structure can be put to work quickly, as this week, the newly elected county commission eliminated the unfair profit-driven system of charging juveniles in detention to make phone calls. Similarly, the misguided policy that resulted in people losing their driver’s license for nonpayment of fines has been struck down by the courts, thanks to the tireless work of activist attorneys. These are small but significant steps, but they are an indication that some of those in power understand that helping people who are caught in the gears of the system helps us all.

Here’s the checklist Democrats need to focus on: fix health care, enact sensible gun laws, and restore and preserve voting rights for all. Getting caught up in investigations of the president would be a mistake, in my opinion. Trump’s gonna Trump — until he gets trumped.

And that’s coming, too.