ANNAPOLIS | The Maryland legislature will vote this week on whether to override Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto and grant voting rights to felons once they are released from prison — even if they are still serving probation or are on parole.
Voting rights accounts for one of six vetoes the legislature will try to overturn as it takes care of unfinished business from last year’s session.
Under current law, felons must complete their full sentence, including probation and parole, before regaining the right to vote. Democrats are leading a push to relax those rules, arguing it will help convicts readjust to society.
Advocates of the bills, such as sponsor Delegate Cory McCray, said giving voting rights back to felons will make them feel like they’re part of society again.
“These folks are taxpayers,” said Mr. McCray, Baltimore Democrat. “They’re trying to reintegrate into the system, into the neighborhoods. They shop in the same supermarkets we shop in, they get gas in the same places and their kids go to the same schools we go to. They need a voice in housing, policy and things like that because they’re directly impacted by transportation, housing, workforce and so many other issues that critically impact communities of color.”
Mr. McCray has had his own run-ins with the law, having once spent 10 months in a youth correctional facility for selling drugs at age 16 and then landing in jail when he was 18 on a drugs and weapons charge. He has been open about his struggles and his journey to get back on the straight-and-narrow, all the way to the Maryland Statehouse.
But he and other backers will struggle to override the governor’s veto, with Republicans rallying behind their party leader.
“The governor vetoed that bill for a good cause, and I believe in restoring rights to felons after they have completed their sentences and paid their debt to the victims and society and this pre-empts that,” House Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga said. “I think we should not restore rights until the victims have been restituted.”
When the bill initially passed last year, it had enough support to override a veto in the Senate, but fell shy in the House, where it passed with 82 votes.
The House and Senate will take up the override bills on Wednesday and Thursday. A three-fifths vote in both chambers is required to override a veto — 85 in the House and 28 in the Senate.
Other bills up for an override vote are likely to be more successful, since each passed with large majorities. Two make possession of marijuana paraphernalia a civil offense instead of a crime, two bills relate to taxes for online hotel-booking sites and one raises the standard of civil asset forfeiture.
Roughly 40,000 felons would get their voting rights back if the legislature overrides Mr. Hogan’s veto.
The debate is exposing a philosophical divide in the General Assembly between those who believe in expanding voting rights and those who say they are sending the wrong message to felons.
“Voting is a very prosocial act and we want folks in our communities to engage in prosocial acts and behavior,” said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “We are in a country where far too many people who are able to vote choose not to vote, and when you have people that desperately want to be part of the system, be part of the decision-making process, they should be allowed to do that.”
But House Minority Leader Nicholaus Kipke said the bill is “bad public policy.”
“No one suggests, through any data at all, that this would do any of the things some the proponents argue,” said Mr. Kipke, Anne Arundel Republican. “Instead, I think it’s yet another thing Maryland’s due that’s insulting to the victims of serious crimes. Someone on house arrest that the government doesn’t trust to be yet released to society is going to be able to vote. And they’re going to get to vote for state’s attorneys, judges, sheriffs, you know? It’s just bad public policy.”
Some lawmakers object to the restoration bills because they include violent criminals.
Sen. Joan Carter Conway, Baltimore Democrat, doubted that would be a problem, saying the most serious criminals are unlikely to be released from prison.
But she said in case the override fails, lawmakers are working on a new “backup plan” bill this session that would exclude violent felons from regaining their rights until they have completed probation or parole.
This struggle over ex-felon voting rights also is heating up in Virginia, where the law requires ex-felons to petition the governor, or in the case of violent crimes, the courts, to regain their rights.
Virginia Delegate Greg Habeeb, Craig County Republican, introduced a bill that would automatically give nonviolent ex-felons the right to vote once they have completed probation or parole. Similar bills have been introduced over the last decade, usually by Democrats.
Delegate Mark Cole, chairman of the House Privileges and Elections Committee, said he did not support the bill.
“I do believe that everyone deserves a second chance, however, I am not comfortable with an automatic process without any review,” the Spotsylvania Republican said. “I believe the current process for restoration is good since it allows for a review before rights are restored.”
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