BET.com Feature

By - Chuck "Jigsaw" Creekmur

George Bush might not have become president if not for Florida’s current felony laws. African Americas in Florida, the tie-breaking state, gave then-contender Vice President Al Gore about 93 percent of their vote, and he would almost certainly have won if not for the state’s ex-felon voting ban – shutting out roughly 200,000 Black men from the polls.

“Gore lost by less than 2,000 votes [in Florida]. While we can’t say who people would vote for, we can’t get past the fact that if the voting laws were different [Gore] could have easily won,” stated Monifa Bandele, executive director of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. “All he would have needed was a small percentage of those people [who were] disenfranchised,”

The issue of voting rights for ex-felons has particular significance among the hip-hop community. Rappers like Keith Murray, Shyne, Mystikal, C-Murder, Bun-B of UGK, and Project Pat – all convicted felons – represent a microcosm of broader young, Black, male, incarcerated population, in which the legacy of slavery has resulted in the disfranchisement of tens of thousands of African Americans.



“These rappers are … our sons in the street, the guys we grew up with, the ornery younger brother that might listen to too much hip-hop,” said Chris Brown, a freelance writer. “These guys live here too. There are too many of them to simply disregard their views and lives.”



Nationwide, disfranchisement laws affect nearly 3.9 million ex-offenders, 1.4 million of who are Black men, according to a report conducted by the Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group. The number constitutes roughly 13 percent of all Black men and the figure is an astounding seven times higher than for the rest of America.



“It’s just a way to prevent Black people, particularly the Black male, from partaking in their election anyway,” says writer/author Dream Hampton, also of Malcolm X Grassroots and co-scribe of Jay-Z’s upcoming “Black Book” with outrage. Hampton contends that many prisoners are counted as citizens and pay taxes even though they are unable to vote – taxation without representation. “It’s totally unconstitutional.”



Joseph “Jazz” Hayden, 62, is going directly to the heart of the matter by challenging these laws. Hayden is the Director of the New York City Right to Vote Coalition and a former convicted felon. He intends to fight the law fervently as the lead plaintiff in a case, “Hayden Vs. Pataki,” which challenges the disenfranchisement statues under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment Voting Rights Act. Filed on September 13, 2000, he expects to go to trial in 2005.



“The system is racist. All you have to do is look in any jail, any bullpen. All you will see is Black, brown and beige stuck in a cage,” Hayden said. “[Blacks] represent about 15 percent of the citizens of the state [of New York], but 50 percent of the those incarcerated. With Latinos, we all make up over 80 percent of the prison population.”



The government institutions that uphold the laws, which disenfranchise felons, see the punishment differently. “If you break the rules, you don’t get to help make the rules,” said John Locke, considered one of the great philosophers of Europe, embodies the reasoning for why the laws should hinder a huge segment of the population from voting.



Actually, finding a government official to speak on voting laws as they pertain to ex-felons has proved difficult,. BET.com was unable to connect with a government official in either New York or Florida willing to discuss the issue.


But Rapper Lil’ Flip challenges Locke’s reasoning, stating he feels that the laws help promote an inhumane cycle that ravages the Black community.



“You can’t get a job, you can’t vote so it’s basically a system that almost forces you too go back to what you were doing before,” says rapper Lil’ Flip. “I don’t think it’s fair. That’s like saying you aren’t a citizen anymore.”



Kym Clark, of the New York’s Fifth Avenue Committee's "Prison Families Community Forum," says that the facts have been contorted over the years. Because of the misinformation disseminated, Clark says that people aren’t presented with the facts or how the laws differ from state to state.



“What we're working on is informing the public that anyone who has been convicted of a felony, but is no longer under the control of the state (in prison, on parole) can vote in New York,” she said. “Many are misinformed by official institutions including the board of elections, parole offices, department of corrections, and are told that they lose their right to vote forever. This is not true. Furthermore, if you are in Riker's Island awaiting trial, or if you are on probation you do retain the right to vote, even through absentee ballot.”



Hayden concurs, “What has happened is nobody – not even the people that are most impacted by this – know anything about the laws. In New York, at no time will they tell you that you have lost your right to vote or when it will be restored to you. We started our campaign to educate.”



According to a Jet magazine report, Illinois, for example suspended the voting rights of those felons that are still in jail. In Georgia any felon on parole, probation or in prison can’t vote. And Texas allows an ex-felon to vote two years after completing his sentence. Florida, of course, remains one of the few states where felons are permanently barred from voting. Likewise, Deleware, Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Wyoming all permanently bar felons from voting, but overall the felony laws varies from state to state.


The Right to Vote Coalition has established five states where they have started spreading the word. These states are Texas Alabama, Florida, New York and Maryland.

The origins of America’s voting laws go back to the beginning of the U.S itself. In 1777, those scribes that drafted New York’s constitution only granted free men and those that owned land the right to vote. And as more Black men started owning property and went free, the voting laws were altered so that Black men were held to higher property standards than their White counterparts.



“Present day prisoners are in fact slaves. If you want to know what slavery was like in the 18th century, all you have to do is look at our prison system,” Hayden says with a tinge of anger.



In the mid-1800s the laws further expanded to eliminate voting rights for those that were convicted of “any infamous crime.” By that point, Blacks were considered to be 13 times more likely to fall in the category. During the post-civil war Reconstruction period closer to the end of the 1800’s –during which there were many newly freed slaves -- laws were put on the books that most closely resemble today’s felony laws. For example during Reconstruction many homeless ex-slaves, found guilty of vagrancy, a felony at the time—would be denied the right to vote.



“This is something that goes directly to the question of power. Traditionally, the people of color that are disenfranchised vote for Democrats so it would be in their interests to support this,” Hayden says.



Nowadays, cities like New York have a plethora of organizations that have decided to go head-to-head against the laws that limit the voter rights of felons.



“There are a number of Organizations working on this including Osborne Association, MXGM (Malcolm X Grassroots Movement), Center for Law and Social Justice, Prison Families Community Forum/Developing Justice - Stop the Contract Campaign, Center for Constitutional Rights, the Community Service Society (CSS), Drop the Rock coalition, the NAACP, the Brennan Center for Justice and many others,” Clark said.


Rapper David Banner from SRC Records presented a different message for those disenfranchised by the voting laws of the land.



“Some of us may be convicted felons, some not have the ability to vote but I think that with our word, if we can influence a hundred thousand other people to vote then we need to do that,” he told us. “You'll have hypocrites saying that if we're not voting ourselves then why should they. We may not be doing the right things ourselves but if you're pushing other people to do what's right, that's effective too.”



Bandele concludes that the cause is not one that only African American’s should fight, but everyone should.



“If people are in America are interested in true democracy, they would work towards the re-enfranchisement of felons. This is an obstacle to full democracy. Its most relevant to Black people in our culture that are the most targeted.”



Hampton says while the laws appear to be inherently racist, those opposing it should find strength in the fact that the laws are a violation of human rights.



“Malcolm had the right idea when he brought up human rights, not just civil rights,” Hampton says. “For people that want something to fight for, this is an issue in need of global attention.”



Agreeing, Jazz Hayden, who has paid his debt to society, picks up his paycheck, counts the taxes that go directly to the several levels of government and ponders why he is still unable to vote like most citizens.



There is hope. In January, The Virginia Senate passed, with little debate, a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the General Assembly to restore the voting rights of nonviolent felons. Maryland and other states have similar Senate-level legislation to restore the rights of felony offenders on the table. And of course there is the all the hard and interlinked work the organizers we talked to are doing. There is hope.

the prison system helps uphold slavery to this day.

sad thing is, theres plenty of folk in there who are innocent too.