Parolee Voting Becoming a Hot Issue

People on parole should be allowed to vote, if the climate is truly changing in Colorado.
We know that recidivism is reduced when people feel that they are part of their
community. People who are on parole have done most of their time, have jobs and pay taxes and should be involved in the process of elections, it helps them to reengage as full participants in society.

What was supposed to be a technical bill cleaning up Colorado's election procedures has been snarled by floor amendments that make it worth defeating.

One change to Senate Bill 83 would allow parolees to vote; another would bar candidates who've lost one party's nomination from running as another party's nominee for the same office in the same election.

If they stay on the bill it should be defeated. SB 83 won preliminary passage in the Senate Tuesday, but final passage may be delayed until next week because a few members will be out of town until then.

Rocky Mountain News

Why all the hubbub? Here's the Sentinel's take on it.

Suthers said the parolee portion of the bill, added by Senate Majority Leader Peter Groff, D-Denver, during this week’s floor debate and affirmed by Democrats on a party-line vote Tuesday, will likely “cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in legal expenses, just to plow old ground that was tilled less than eight months ago.”

“Senate Bill 83, which was originally intended to improve the integrity of Colorado’s electoral process, has been saddled with a provision that I believe is unconstitutional,” Suthers said. “I would urge the Legislature to amend the bill to comply with our state’s guiding document.”

In the July 31 decision that Suthers cited, Justice Gregory Hobbs wrote for the court: “A person who is serving a sentence of parole has not served his or her full term of imprisonment.”

Under current law, anyone serving a prison sentence or is out on parole cannot vote.

Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, who attempted to overturn Groff’s amendment earlier this week, called Groff’s amendment an attempt to legislate ideas from outside the mainstream.

“Giving the right to vote to murderers, rapists who are still on parole is probably unconstitutional, and it is certainly horrible public policy,” Penry said. “This is the latest in a long line of bizarre left-wing tangents that may be mainstream in Boulder, but (are) not mainstream anywhere else in Colorado.”

John Redifer, a political science professor at Mesa State College, said the concerns of Penry and Suthers might amount to politics more than constitutional law.

“What it really boils down to is such a large percentage of our prison population are minorities who are seen as generally supporting the Democratic Party,” Redifer said. “When you are excluding a certain percentage of that minority from participating in elections, you reduce the influence that group has on the elections.”

He said if this demographic is allowed to vote, it could push Democrats closer to controlling a majority in districts where Republicans might hold a slim majority and bolster districts that Democrats already control. Colorado had 8,567 people released on parole in 2006, according to statistics from the Colorado Department of Corrections. Last year, Mesa County was home to 493 parolees.

Of Colorado’s parolees last year, 32.6 percent were Hispanic and 16.9 percent were black.

Tupa’s bill could return for its third and final floor vote as early as today.

Grand Junction Sentinel