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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2003)
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com Online: www.dailyemerald.com Oregon Daily Emerald COMMENTARY Editor in Chief: Brad Schmidt Managing Editor: Jan Tobias Montry Editorial Editor: Travis Willse Thursday, November 20, 2003 Humanitarian, president leaves great legacy Editor's note: In memory of President John F. Kennedy, the Emerald is reprinting an editorial originally run Saturday Nov. 23, 1963, the day after his death. "All this will not be accomplished in the life of this ad ministration nor in the life of this planet, but let us be gin." An anxious nation caught in the tensions of a cold war found encouragement in John Fitzgerald Kennedy's In augural Address on the first day of his administration. Mis words accurately captured the attitudes and aspira tions of an enlightened society. His statements promised new direction for Americans in the 1960s. His outlook was not narrow; he was in every sense a cosmopolitan, a man with compassion for the citizens of the world. His statements were not idle campaign promises, but posi tive programs for effective free world leadership. John Kennedy's concern for his fellow man was included in the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and civil rights legislation. Under his leadership the free world stood firm against the aggression of international communism. He chal lenged the aggressor with the strength of the free world in Berlin and in Cuba. He sought to rekindle that spirit of the American Revolution which Americans have so often failed to see. He encouraged new democratic gov ernments in Asia and in Latin America. On his world tours he told others about that unique spirit of the Amer ican Revolution which will not tolerate dictators and which strengthens the machinery of free, democratic government. As a senior at Harvard and later as the United States senator from Massachusetts, John Kennedy demonstrat ed that he could write about courage. His books, "Why Fngland Slept" and "Profiles in Courage," indicate that he might have been a prominent historian as well as a national leader. But, John F. Kennedy did more than write about courage; he fully demonstrated it on many occasions. His civil rights program is a case in point. John Kennedy recognized that some Americans are not yet free, a full one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. At a crucial period he stood for the dignity of his fellow man. Political considerations were cast aside when the president drafted his civil rights legislation. He gambled his political fortune on legisla tion which sought equal rights and privileges for all Americans. Americans will not soon forget John Kennedy's hu man leadership, nor will they forget Friday's great na tional tragedy. For students in the Pacific Northwest, it was vivid documentation for the statement that geo graphic proximity has no meaning in mass society. Ge ographic distances are of little concern in a moment of national tragedy. We must realize that the nation must move forward and that John Kennedy's humanitarian goals for an enlightened future have not been fully realized, nor will they "in the life of this plan et, but let us begin." EDITORIAL POLICY This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters @dailyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited to 250 words and guest commentaries to 550 words. Authors are limited to one submission per calendar month. Submission must include phone number and address for verification. The Emerald reserves the right to edit for space, grammar and style. EDITORIAL BOARD Brad Schmidt Aimee Rudin Editor in Chief Freelance Editor Jan Tobias Montry Ayisha Yahya Managing Editor News Editor Travis Willse Editorial Editor Eric Layton Illustrator One more step toward universal suffrage There was a time in America when only rich white men were allowed to vote. But as history progressed, so did we. Today, every able adult citizen enjoys this most funda mental democratic right with one notable exception: convicted felons. Due to a patchwork of state disenfran chisement laws, more than 4.2 million Americans — one in 50 adults — are denied the right to vote. These people include more than one million who have fully paid their debt to society, yet still face sanction, some times for their entire life. At the turn of the 20th century, criminal disenfranchisement laws — in conjunction with poll taxes, literacy tests and other struc tural measures — were retooled with the in tent of denying black men their newly won right to vote. One hundred years later, black men rep resent more than one-third of the total dis enfranchised population, or 1.4 million people. Sixteen states disenfranchise more than 10 percent of their black citizens, ac cording to a study in the December 2002 is sue of the American Sociological Review. This is no coincidence. The racially dis proportionate impact of felon disenfran chisement is the direct result of inequalities within the criminal justice system. With 5 percent of the world's population, the Unit ed States holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners. How did this happen in the land of the free? According to I he Econoipist, the drug war is what happened. Back in the early '70s, America's imprisonment rate was seven times less severe than it is today. In 1980, only 15 per 100,000 adults were incarcerated on drug-related charges. By 1996, that num ber had mushroomed to 148 per 100,000. The drug war became a cover for the per secution of blacks. Even though blacks use illegal drugs at approximately the same rate as whites, according to the Department of Justice's own numbers, blacks are admitted to state prisons more than 13 times as of ten as whites are. In some states, blacks make up 90 percent of inmates incarcerated on drug charges. A study in the December 2001 issue of Social Science Quarterly found that the minority population of a state (in terms of percentage) is the primary factor in pre dicting the severity of that state's felon disenfranchisement laws. A study com missioned by the National Science Foun dation found that states with proportion ately ^ high numbers of ,npp\v|iite prisoners are more likely to disenfran chise convicted felons after incarceration. These two studies show that the persist ence of disenfranchisement is the direct re sult of modem racism: Those in power-can hide behind its race-neutral facade and still inflict harm on black communities. These laws also have devastating politi cal consequences for Democrats, since both prisoners and minorities tend to vote David Jagernauth Critical mass in Democratic blocs. Were it not for felon disenfranchisement laws, the composition of Congress would tilt dramatically to ward the left, according to a study in the December 2002 issue of the American So ciological Review. We also know that Al Gore would have easily won the presidency in 2000 were it not for Florida's disenfranchisement laws, which are the most severe in the nation. Even a minor drug possession arrest is con sidered a felony in Florida, and can result in the loss of voting rights for one's entire life, according to Graham Boyd, director of the ACLll Drug Policy Litigation Project. Voting is a fundamental right in a democracy; therefore, states need to have an extremely compelling justification for ■ eliminating voting rights. One of the theoretical justifications is based on the idea that criminals have bro ken the social contract and therefore have sacrificed their right to participate in it. By this argument, criminal disenfranchise ment fits comfortably within the concept of liberalism, as defined by civic philoso phers like John Locke. In reality, criminal disenfranchisement vi olates the primary tenet of liberalism: That you cannot give away your citizenship. It also fails to meet the liberal standard of propor tional punishment for each and every crime. Felon disenfranchisement fails the pro portionality standard in two ways: (1) by ap plying to all felonies, rather than felonies specifically related to electoral fraud; and (2) j by t^ing oyerly severe, atjeastin the case,qf a lifetime loss of voting rights. Another theoretical justification is based on what is called civic republican ism. Proponents of this argument say that because felons (like children, the in sane and non-citizens) are neither trust worthy nor loyal to the nation, they should also be denied the vote, just as they are denied the right to serve on a jury. Civic republicans argue that anyone convicted of a serious crime has shown himself or herself to be morally inferior, and thus society has an interest in deny ing them the vote. We should not forget that an identical ar gument was used in the past to keep non whites, women, the poor and less educated from the polls. Furthermore, voting is about expressing one's opinion, ethical or not, un like jury duty, which demands objectivity. The penological justifications are equally dubious. Disenfranchisement can't serve as retribution when punishment is adminis tered without proportionality. The low visi bility of disenfranchisement makes it a poor deterrent. And it hinders, rather than helps, an ex-con's rehabilitation and reintegration into society. In Oregon, felons are only disenfran chised while they are incarcerated. I feel this is a fair compromise, so long as all nonviolent felons have their civil rights automatically restored to them once re leased from prison. In the case of violent criminals, I would advocate keeping them disenfranchised while on parole or probation. I feel that the libertarian distinction between nonviolent and violent crime is legitimate insofar as vi olence is a more serious violation of the so cial contract and thus should be punished more severely. States also have a legitimate interest in disenfranchising those convicted of election fraud or serious violations against the state, like treason, perhaps even for life. Enacting the above policies in every state would remove the disparate racial impact of felon disenfranchisement laws, bringing them in line with the principles of liberal ism without endangering the electorate. Whether by state referendum, congres sional injunction or judicial action, we must continue America's historical march for ward, ever closer to universal suffrage. Contact the columnist at davidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.
