Holder says black felons must be given right to vote
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:08 pm
Holder says action must be taken to restore voting rights to felons. He said 2.2 million black citizens, or nearly one in 13 African-American adults, are banned from voting because of laws, and said the ratio climbs to one in five in Florida, Kentucky and Virginia.
Holder's remarks on restoring voting rights are part of the attorney general's initiative seeking fundamental change in the nation's criminal justice system for blacks.
Last August, Holder instructed federal prosecutors to stop charging many nonviolent drug defendants with offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences. He said long mandatory terms have flooded the nation's prisons with black drug offenders.
"These laws, with their disparate impact on minority communities, echo policies enacted during a deeply troubled period in America's past — a time of post-Civil War discrimination," he said. "Although well over a century has passed since post-Reconstruction states used these measures to strip African-Americans of their most fundamental rights, the impact of felony disenfranchisement on modern communities of color remains both disproportionate and unacceptable. I will do everything in my power to reverse laws that adversely impact minorities, they will not stand."