April 6, 2006

By J. JACOB EDEL
Contributing Writer

Indebted and indigent ex-felons seeking to regain the right to vote despite their outstanding legal fines must now wait for a ruling from the state’s high court before they cast their ballot.

Last week, the state government appealed the ruling made in King County Superior Court that stated it was unconstitutional to prohibit ex-felons from voting only because they have not paid-off their legal fees in full.

Convicted felons in Washington currently lose the right to vote and must complete their entire sentence — including paying off all fees assigned by the court — and receive a certificate of discharge from the sentencing court to legally register again.

Many ex-felons, however, struggle to pay the fines and as a result are unable to vote for a substantial amount of time after they’ve been released from jail and completed probation.

“ I feel like I’m not a part of the country anymore,” says Beverly DuBois, an ex-felon who is unable to vote. “And I don’t feel like I’m a citizen because I can’t vote.”

On behalf of DuBois and two other indigent felons, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state in October 2004 arguing that forcing ex-felons to pay off their fines before they can vote, as required in the Washington Sentencing Reform Act of 1981, violates both the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Washington State Constitution.

And on March 27, in a summary judgment, Judge Michael Spearman ruled the state’s requirement that felons pay off all their legal financial obligations, or LFOs, before regaining their civil rights is unconstitutional.

“ Accordingly, the Washington re-enfranchisement scheme which denies the right to vote to one group of felons, while granting that right to another, where the sole distinction between the two groups is the ability to pay money, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Sections 12 and 19 of the Washington State Constitution,” Spearman wrote.

Spearman wrote that the state may enact its own requirements for felons to regain their civil rights, as it has in RCW 9.94A.637(1)(a), but agreed with the ACLU that requiring someone to pay money to earn their right to vote is wrong because he saw no “rational relationship between a felon’s ability to immediately pay Legal Financial Obligations and a denial of the right to vote.”

Hours after the ruling, Republican Party state chair Diane Tebelius issued a press release urging the secretary of state to appeal the ruling. The following day, Secretary of State Sam Reed and Attorney General Rob McKenna announced the state would appeal.

“ I felt like the little guy could make a big noise and get something changed, but then the big guys say no and nothing changes,” DuBois says of the appeal.

The ACLU recommends ex-felons refrain from registering until the Supreme Court makes a decision, even though nobody knows how soon that will occur. That’s because the ACLU remains optimistic despite the appeal.

“ We have made an important victory but it has to be affirmed by a higher court,” Doug Honig of the ACLU says. “When we first started this lawsuit, nobody knew about this. But now it is something with much more awareness. Just getting it on the political agenda was a major accomplishment for us.” n