March 18, 2005: Restoring Ex-Felons' Voting Rights - Urge Your Legislators to Vote Yes by Tuesday

Dear Friends,

Several bills focused on restoring ex-felons' voting rights will be heard on Tuesday, March 22, in the Senate Judiciary Committee in Room 12 at 3:30 p.m. ACLU-TN is committed to making the current cumbersome and complicated process less difficult. We believe it is in society’s best interest to automatically restore voting rights to ex-felons who have served their sentences and have returned to the community. We are working in partnership with other groups and the National "Get Your Vote Back” campaign in the hopes of persuading our state legislature to provide automatic restoration of voting rights to ex-felons who have served their sentences and have returned to the community.

There are four bills pending:

HB1406-Tindell;

SB56-Cohen/HB1721-Turner, L;

SB1678-Cohen/HB1722-Turner, L; and

SB2201-Crutchfield/HB2249-McMillan.

It is important that our legislators understand why it is so important to automatically restore voting rights for ex-felons. (see talking points below)

Please contact your legislators and urge them to support making the current process less cumbersome and providing for automatic restoration of voting rights for ex-felons.

Please contact your State Senator (before the scheduled committee vote) if he/she serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and urge them to support these bills. If your State Senator does not serve on this committee, contact them and ask them to urge their colleagues on the committee to support automatic restoration of ex-felons voting rights! Contact information can be found at http://www.congress.org or http://www.legislature.state.tn.us. You may also contact your legislator toll-free by calling 1-800-449-8366 and entering the extensions listed below. (omitted for web)

Talking Points -

The American Correctional Association and the United States Conference on Mayors support restoring voting rights to ex-felons once they have been discharged from prison, parole, and probation.

It is in the best interest of our society to reintegrate ex-felons into our communities, and voting is an important part of that reintegration process.

People who have paid their debt to society deserve to have their voting rights reinstated. It is the fair and just thing to do.

Felony disenfranchisement laws have their roots in the Jim Crow tradition, which produced poll taxes, literacy tests, and other racially biased schemes for diluting black voting power in the post-Reconstruction era.

Please urge legislators to vote to SUPPORT bills that restore ex-felons' voting rights and make the process less cumbersome and complicated in Tennessee.

Many thanks.
Hedy Weinberg, Executive Director