Department of Legal Counsel Voting Rights
Voting Rights Act
A study done
by the Community Service Society entitled Voting
Rights in New York 1982-2006 (PDF) (March
2006, by Juan Cartegena), was submitted to Congress
during the successful deliberations to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006.
The report, authored by Juan Cartagena, General Counsel to the
Community Service Society, documents recent examples of voting
rights violations, regarding voter intimidation, failure to provide
bilingual assistance and discriminatory redistricting plans.
Mr. Cartagena provided testimony (PDF)
in November 2005 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution
of the House Committee on the Judiciary of the United State House
of Representatives.
In May 2006, Juan Cartagena of CSS presented testimony
on the Voting Rights Act (PDF) before the Committee on the
Judiciary of the United States Senate.
Felon Disenfranchisement
Beginning in 2002, and continuing through the present,
CSS is directly engaged in challenging the laws and policies in New York
that have historically impeded poor voters from participating in the
political process because of a prior felony conviction. Felon disenfranchisement
policies in New York State date back to 1821 when the constitution was
amended to include racially based property requirements on "men of colour."
Today, the effect of such laws is to deny the full voting strength of
specific New York City African-American and Latino communities. By challenging
these principles, CSS joins a growing list of advocates throughout the country
that question the legitimacy of felon disenfranchisement laws. In addition to
the Hayden v. Spitzer litigation described below, CSS was instrumental, along
with the Legal Action Center and the Brennan Center at NYU Law School, in
changing the policies for re-integrating persons with felony convictions back
into the voting rolls. Our advocacy efforts, supported by full legal analysis,
convinced the New York State Board of Elections to streamline and simplify the
process for registering voters who have completed their incarceration and
parole sentences.
- Hayden v. Pataki (2003): This is a
constitutional and Voting Rights Act challenge to New York laws that
disenfranchise persons with felony convictions while they are incarcerated
and while they are serving parole. The case is still pending in the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit where the only remaining claim is
whether plaintiffs can prove that the adoption of felon disfranchisement
in New York in 1821 was done purposefully to discriminate against "men of
colour". Our co-counsel are the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Center
for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evens College.
-
Farrakhan v. Gregoire (2006):
This is a Voting Rights Act challenge to felon disfranchisement in
Washington state which raises the identical issue under Section 2
of the Act that was litigated and lost in Hayden v. Spitzer. In
the Washington case the lower court found compelling evidence of
racial discrimination in the State’s criminal justice system but
nonetheless ruled against the prisoners because in its view additional
evidence of a violation of Section 2 was warranted. CSS filed an
amicus brief in this case arguing that in the context of felon
disfranchisement the primordial relevant evidence is whether the
criminal justice system produces discriminatory outcomes. The
case is pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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