Federal court upholds Massachusetts law in face of challenge under Voting Rights Act

Today, in the case of Simmons v. Galvin, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Massachusetts law against a challenge under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law prohibits persons with felony convictions from voting while they are incarcerated. In 2000, the Massachusetts legislature enacted the law to prohibit presently incarcerated felons from voting in all state elections, following passage of a state constitutional amendment that, standing alone, would prohibit incarcerated felons from voting in only some elections. The plaintiffs, incarcerated felons, argued that because the percentage of persons incarcerated with felony convictions in Massachusetts who are African-American or Latino is higher than the percentage of those groups in the state population at large, the law abridges the right to vote on account of race in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The two-judge majority of the Court of Appeals rejected the arguments of the plaintiffs, finding that the “language, history, and context” of the Voting Rights Act make clear that Congress did not intend for Section 2 to prohibit states from passing laws that prohibit currently incarcerated felons from voting. The dissenting judge found that the plain meaning of Section 2 supported the plaintiffs’ challenge, and that the law had a “disproportionately adverse effect” on African-American and Latino prisoners, who are over-represented in the criminal justice system.

Felony disenfranchisement laws bar more than 5 million American citizens from voting, and nationwide, 13 percent of African American men, seven times the national average, are unable to vote because of the laws. The Democratic National Committee will continue to monitor developments in this case, and others involving the Voting Rights Act.