Florida Rights Restoration Coalition

Footing the Bill: The FRRC’s Fight for Florida Felons

Election Law Society · October 7, 2020 ·

By Nicholas Balbontin

“Past mistakes should not define a person’s future.”

These words, tweeted from the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) in 2019, have become a rallying cry for those Americans attempting to fight for felons’ right to vote in Florida. ” FRRC was founded bv returning citizerns and is “dedicated to ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination against people with conviction.”

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision to uphold Fla. Stat. § 98.0751 has been widely covered across blogs, articles, and general media. The court upheld Fla. Stat. § 98.0751(2)(a)(5)(b), stating that even when a returning citizen has completed the imprisonment portion of his sentence, he has not fully completed his sentence until all fines and fees are paid. The decision not only sparked controversy but increased the urgency of voting rights restoration efforts as the upcoming presidential election approaches. In an incredibly lengthy, 6-4 split opinion, the majority cited the lack of a suspect class as the main reason behind its holding of no equal protection violation. Without a suspect class in question to elicit strict scrutiny, the court turned to rational basis review. Through this lens, the State was found to have had a rational interest in ensuring that its convicted felons completed the entirety of their sentence. This presents a barrier to restoration for those returning citizens who face financial hardship and are unable to pay off these fines and fees.

Release from a Political Life Sentence: How Florida Voters Approved the Largest Enfranchisement in 47 Years – Part II

Election Law Society · January 23, 2019 ·

By: Zach McDonnell

This post is the second post of a two-part series. Part One focused on the provisions of the Florida Constitution that disenfranchises ex-felons, how the administration of Governor Rick Scott strictly interpreted those provisions, and the now-moot lawsuit to upend Governor Scott’s felon-disenfranchisement rules.

In late 2014, the PAC Floridians for a Fair Democracy started the long process of putting a rights-restoration amendment in front of Florida voters, with an initial goal of making it to the ballot in 2016; however, the signature threshold required under Florida law (eight percent of votes cast in the previous presidential election—which in 2014 amounted to 766,200 signatures) was far too formidable to be met in such a short amount of time. By October 2016, restoration advocates, led by the non-profit Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), had garnered only enough signatures to trigger review by the Florida Supreme Court for the ballot initiative’s language—a mere 76,632 (the Florida Supreme Court later approved the language on April 20, 2017).

Florida Activists Seek Re-Enfranchisement for Felons

Election Law Society · January 9, 2017 ·

By: Ethan Emery

With regards to the right to vote, a fair amount of press time has been spent on the ongoing situation surrounding the voting rights of felons in Virginia. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has attempted to return voting rights to thousands of Virginia felons, even in the face of a countermanding Supreme Court order. However, a little further South, a much larger group of the disenfranchised is seeking similar reforms.