PRESS RELEASES
Release Date: January 15, 2003
CONTACT: Lenore Neier, CSSNY, 212/614-5425
Coalition of Civil Rights Organizations Challenge New York
State’s Laws Denying the Vote to Prisoners and Parolees
Federal lawsuit, Hayden,
et al. v. Pataki,
Asserts that All U.S. Citizens Have the
Right to Vote
“We know that Americans of good will have learned
that no nation can long continue to flourish or to
find its way to a better society while it allows any one
of its citizens...to be denied the right to participate
in the most fundamental of all privileges of democracy
- the right to vote.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(“Civil Rights
No. 1: The Right to Vote,” The
New York Times, March 14, 1965.)
Related Documents
New York, NY, January 15, 2003 – The
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the
Community Service Society of New York (CSS), and the Center
for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College (CLSJ),
seek to vastly expand the claims of a class action lawsuit
today, charging that New York State laws that deny the vote
to individuals who are incarcerated or on parole are unconstitutional
and discriminatory. The coalition charges that New York
State laws were originally intended to deny full rights
to African Americans and its continued application today
disproportionately harms Black and Latino communities and
violates the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil
Rights Act, and international law.
The amended complaint
in Hayden, et al. v. Pataki, is being litigated in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of
New York on behalf of three groups of people: (1) Blacks
and Latinos who are currently incarcerated for a felony conviction,
(2) Blacks and Latinos who are currently on parole for a
felony conviction, and (3) Black and Latino voters from Black
and Latino communities who are denied an equal opportunity
in the political process in New York State because of the
disproportionate disfranchisement of Blacks and Latinos who
are incarcerated or on parole for a felony conviction.
The Disfranchised
African Americans and
Latinos collectively make up 87% of the population currently
denied the right to vote. In New York, Blacks and Latinos
are prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to incarceration
at rates substantially disproportionate to whites. Blacks
comprise 16% of the state’s population,
but make up over 54% of the state’s current prison
population and 50% of those on parole. Latinos comprise
15% of the state’s
population but are 27% of the prison population and 32%
of those on parole. By contrast whites comprise 62% of
the state’s
population but only 16% of the prison population in the
state.
Whites convicted of a felony in New York State are
more likely to be sentenced to a conditional or unconditional
discharge or to probation than Blacks and Latinos. Since
only incarceration triggers the denial of voting rights,
whites convicted of felonies are therefore, less likely
to lose their right to vote. The disproportionate disfranchisement
of Blacks and Latinos in New York State who are incarcerated
or on parole for a felony conviction, not only deprives
them of their basic citizenship right, it also dilutes
the voting strength of New York’s communities of color
in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“If the present trends in incarceration and disfranchisement
continue unchecked, the African-American community’s
political power will be seriously eroded and the Latino community
will never fulfill its political potential,” stated
Theodore Shaw of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Impact on Communities of Color
Approximately
80% of New York State’s prison population
consists of Blacks and Latinos from New York City’s
predominately Black and Latino communities, including
Harlem, Washington Heights, the Lower East Side, the South
and East Bronx, Central and East Brooklyn, and Southeast
Queens. When released, the majority of the former prisoners
return to these communities.
This disproportionate disfranchisement
is exacerbated by the fact that the U.S. Census counts
prisoners as residents of the communities in which they are
incarcerated, and not as residents of the predominately Black
and Latino communities from which they often come. New York
State uses these Census numbers to shape redistricting decisions
that determine state and federal representation. Because
most African-American and Latino prisoners are counted upstate
in non-minority communities, the voting strength of communities
of color is further weakened.
“Many major elections are decided by a very narrow margin.
If most people who are barred from voting because of a felony
conviction were allowed to vote, the African-American and
Latino communities from which they come could hold the balance
of power,” said Juan Cartagena of the Community Service
Society.
Electoral Exclusion: Past as Prologue
New
York has an extensive history of racial discrimination,
dating back to the framers of the New York State Constitution.
Delegates created voting requirements that intentionally
deprived minorities of the right to vote (only property
holders could vote). In 1821, New York State implemented
a statute that disfranchised those convicted of “infamous
crimes”
from the right to vote. In 1894, the state adopted a felony
disfranchisement law.
“It is hard to believe that almost 150 years after Emancipation
and nearly 40 years after the passage of the Voting Rights
Act, New York, home to most of the nation’s immigrants,
is still fighting vestiges of slavery and discrimination,”
said Esmeralda Simmons of Center for Law and Social Justice.
New York State’s disfranchisement statute is a modern
version of historic voting rights barriers like black codes,
Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and poll taxes. While these
barriers to voting and full citizenship have been struck down
over time, felony disfranchisement continues to ravish the
political power of New York’s communities of color.
Background
In September 2001, Joseph Hayden
filed a pro se lawsuit while still incarcerated on a felony
charge. That lawsuit has since been expanded and amended
by the organizations that have opted to represent Mr. Hayden
and include those currently serving sentences, ex-felons
on parole, like Joseph Hayden, and communities of color denied
their full participation in civic society due to these disfranchisement
laws.
As
one of the nation’s oldest civil rights and public
interest law firms, LDF has been involved in nearly all
the precedent-setting minority voting rights litigation
and advocacy for decades, including the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 and its 1982 amendments, and the 1993 National
Voter Registration Act. For more than 150 years, CSS has
been confronting the causes and symptoms of poverty in New
York City through an array of social service and litigation
activities intended to protect the rights of all New Yorkers
regardless of race, language status, or income. CLSJ has
been engaged in litigation and public education efforts to
defend the voting rights of minority communities for decades,
including partnering with LDF and CSS to help educate ethnic
and language minorities about the redistricting process in
2001.
For over 150 years, CSS has pursued a mission that is
aimed at the poor but which benefits all: to identify and
eradicate the problems creating and perpetuating poverty in
New York City. CSS is an independent, nonprofit organization
that assists those in need to defeat the problems of poverty
and more fully participate in productive community life.
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