With millions of Americans living and working in our communities, but disenfranchised by past felony convictions, Congress has taken the first step to put democracy back on track.
But Tuesday’s House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Democracy Restoration Act – a bill that would set a federal standard for when a felon can regain his voting rights for federal elections – showed once again that members of Congress aren’t too good at running congressional hearings. The Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties spent most of its time on the question of whether Congress has the power to set the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections. (It does, and it is settled law since the courts rejected constitutional challenges to the National Voter Registration Act in the mid 1990s.) On the other hand, the Subcommittee paid scant attention to the racial implications of felon disenfranchisement laws (13 percent of African Americans are disenfranchised nationwide, and up to 20 percent in some states.) Witnesses included NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary O. Shelton, American Probation and Parole Association Executive Director Carl Wicklund, and Leon County, Fla. Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho, among others.
But if the committee members heard nothing else, we hope they listened closely to the compelling testimony of Andres Idarraga, a former felon, whose story is so compelling—and so beyond politics—that it must be told to a wider audience. Idarraga spent six and a half years in prison for drug dealing. Today, he is a second year law student at Yale and a graduate of Brown. While in prison, he discovered the prison library and a group of inmates who formed an informal book club/debating society. He was inspired to pursue higher education and to find his place in a society he had rejected by the age of 20.
Soon after his release, Idarraga learned that he had no voting rights and joined the Rhode Island Right to Vote campaign to change the felon disenfranchisement law of his state. In 2006, Rhode Island passed a referendum to re-enfranchise citizens after they are released from prison. Because his ability to vote had profoundly changed Idarraga’s relationship with his community, he traveled to Washington to relate his experience to Congress.
“Today, we have created a society that excludes some five million people from the ballot,” he said. “This exclusion is at the end of a complicated chain that often begins with poverty and a lack of education, involves the criminal justice system and penal institutions, and often ends in isolation, bitterness and disenfranchisement….I have personally traveled this complicated chain, from beginning to end.”
Idarraga’s journey and moving description of the role of voting in his rehabilitation are undeniable arguments for the positive impact that re-enfranchisement has on former felons. Of course, not every offender ends up at Yale Law School. But, every offender should have a chance to rebuild his life and re-establish ties with his community. Participation in the rites of citizenship can be an integral part of this process. Unfortunately, the right to vote has become a partisan issue in Congress. For Andres and others like him, Congress should rise above party lines and recognize the transformative power of the ballot box.