Return voting rights to ex-felons

Herald-Leader

The Kentucky House of Representatives is once again acting favorably on a proposal (HB 70) by Rep. Jesse Crenshaw, D-Lexington, to amend the state constitution to automatically restore voting rights to non-violent felons who have paid their assigned debt to society.

Remarkably, each time in recent years this measure has passed out of the House it has stopped dead in the Senate.

This is a good year to change that pattern. We are, after all, witnessing one of the great political processes as the presidential campaign unfolds before our very eyes.

There is a lot of debate these days about the role of government in our lives, but does anyone really think it should be government's task to prevent people from voting?

Kentucky is one of only a handful of states in which a felony conviction carries with it a lifetime loss of voting rights.

Under our constitution, it's up to the governor to restore that right to people who have served their time. With most governors it's fairly routine to restore rights to people who ask after they've finished their time with the Department of Corrections.

But not always.

Former Governor Ernie Fletcher, for example, required people to write an essay and get three letters of recommendation before he'd even consider restoring an individual's voting rights.

Why, you might wonder, is this even an issue? Why not put a proposed amendment on the ballot and let those of us who can vote decide?

It's really basic political math. A 2006 Kentucky League of Women Voters study found that one in four Kentucky black adults is banned from the polls by this policy. Blacks are much more likely to vote for Democratic candidates and so the Republican-controlled Senate (and the former Republican governor) are not motivated to increase their numbers at the polls.

That's just wrong. Released felons are set free to participate in society, including paying taxes, and so they should be able to participate in one of the most fundamental of our citizenship rights — voting.

It's that simple.

KFTC appreciates the support of HB 70 in this editorial, but we also point out that many strong supporters of HB 70 are Republicans - including former felon spokespeople, co-sponsoring legislators, and legislators in both chambers who support the bill.  The people preventing it from being voted on are just a handful of Senate leaders like Sen David Williams and Sen Damon Thayer.  

And in other Voting Rights news, we've had a good continuous presence in Frankfort talking to legislators, plus field events like this presentation to UK NAACP earlier this week.  KFTC leader and former felon Tayna Fogle talked to almost 40 students, inviting them to take action by phone or by joining us in Frankfort.  We look forward to working with the UK NAACP more soon

After the election join us at Al's Bar in Lexington to celebrate our people power and demand of the newly elected that KENTUCKY DESERVES BETTER!

Performances by: Madeline Adams Reva Williams Warren Byrom and Small Batch.

$5 cover, all ages. Proceeds from the door benefit the work of KFTC.

The election is just around the corner and KFTC members are working hard to ensure that folks have enough information to vote and that they're ready to go to the polls on November 8th. This past Wednesday in Lexington members from the central Kentucky chapter made 235 calls to folks to make sure people knew where their polling location is and that they can see where the candidates stand on a variety issues by visiting Kentuckyelection.org.

During their monthly chapter meeting, KFTC members used their time to focus on the Kentucky Deserves Better campaign and mobilizing voters to the polls.

Eight members wrote letters about how Rep. Hal Roger's actions in congress are ruining any possibility of a bright future for Kentuckians. The focused on his actions to cut Pell Grants, access to Head Start Programs and to limit the EPA's authority in protecting our air and water.

During the second half of their meeting members divided into groups to plan for mobilizing voters to the polls. On group focused on distributing the KFTC voter guides out to the community, another on letters to the editor, and the third group actually called KFTC members to remind them to get out and vote on Nov. 8th.

Today, UK KFTC students registered a whopping 121 people on campus!  Additionally, we trained 5 new students how to register voters, had a lot of good conversations with people about KFTC, and made some key connections to other groups interested in registering students.

A major task of the day was letting students know that they have the right to register at either a permanent home address or a temporary local one - and because Election Day is on a school day, we recommend folks be registered on campus where they'll actually be. 

UK KFTC members will take some of their new skills to the Roots and Heritage festival this weekend where they'll register more voters, and they have a few more registration events scheduled on campus.   

Students at the University of Kentucky had their first meeting of the semester with over 30 people in attendance. The meeting ran an hour with the students talking about ways to learn more about KFTC's issue campaigns and how to involve other university students in the work. They planned two days to register voters on campus and two days to write letters to legislators. They also talked about making an effort this semester to reach out to other student groups on campus and form alliances when possible.

The UK KFTC students meet every Wednesday at 6 p.m. in room 111 of the student center. Everyone is welcome. For more information about these meetings you can contact either Jared Flanery at jared.flanery2@gmail.com or Callie Thomas at callie.thomas@uky.edu

 As soon as summer hit, the Central Kentucky chapter has been out and about talking to folks about our work. On June 25th members of the chapter's fairness committee canvassed at the Lexington Pride festival collecting signatures for their safer restrooms petition. This was the fourth year for Lexington pride and there were easily over 10,000 folks in attendance. Chapter members had the opportunity to have some really great conversation about KFTC's work and in just two hours were able to collect 216 signatures.

 

Just a week later chapter members were at it again at Lexington's huge fourth of July celebration. From 9am - 6pm folks stopped by the KFTC table to talk about our work and to sign our restoration of voting rights petition and our petition to end mountain top removal coal mining.

The next big festival that you can catch KFTC at will be Lexington's annual roots and heritage festival on Saturday September 10th. Tabling/canvassing can be a really great way to get your feet wet and learn about KFTC. If you're interested in volunteering with us at Roots and Heritage, then please contact the local organizer at ondine@kftc.org

When Workers Run Their Own Factories, Banks and Schools:
A Report on the Mondragon Coops
 
May 10, 7 p.m.
Lexington Central Library
140 East Main Street
Lexington, Kentucky

• Overview of Famous Mondragon Cooperative Movement– Centered in Spain’s Basque Country, but spreading across Europe and the Global South
• Examples of US Worker Cooperatives- California, Chicago, and Cleveland, OH
• Possibilities for Green Jobs, Green Manufacturing and Clean Energy Structural Reform beginning in Eastern Kentucky

For the past 50 years, something important has been growing in Spain’s Basque Country. It’s an organized network of over 120 factories, with their own bank, schools and research centers, involving more than 100,000 workers. They’re called the Mondragon Coops, and they are unique in that they are owned and controlled by the workers themselves—one worker, one share, one vote. They are also unique in they obtain credit from their own worker-owned bank and skills from their own university. They are thriving and growing , even in the midst of crisis, and have a lot to teach us on the possibilities of radical change in hard times.

Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national leader of the US Solidarity Economy Network, a member of Steelworker Associates, and writes for Beaver County Blue, a progressive website In the 1960s, he studied social and political philosophy at Penn State University and the University of Nebraska. He currently resides in Aliquippa, his hometown in Western PA.

We will also be joined by Sara Pennington, the new power campaign organizer for KFTC who will share the work being done to reform energy cooperatives in eastern Kentucky.

A short discussion will follow the presentation

Sponsored by:

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
The central Kentucky chapter of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice

Contact Person: Janet Tucker, jlynjenks@qx.net

 By: Jessica Barnett, UK KFTC Member

Inspired by the work of the group Kentucky Rising, students in KFTC’s UK student group held an event on campus Friday to raise awareness of  Mountain Top Removal Mining (MTR) and its effects on Kentuckians, and to illustrate the connections between UK students in Lexington and the people living in Eastern Kentucky. They called the event UK Rising. More than 40 people came out to participate, eat chili, and listen.

The event began with live funk music by One Way Out, and a vegan chili dinner prepared by the students. After the meal, Martin Mudd of Louisville spoke about his experience at the sit-in in Governor Beshear's Office with Kentucky Rising. He stressed that direct action isimportant because it shows your representatives you’re willing to do more than write lettersand allow them to be ignored.According to Mudd, the Kentucky Rising sit-in helped show the governor just how serious Kentuckians are about ending the destructive practice of MTR.

Ada Smith of Whitesburg shared her experience as a young person from Eastern Kentucky. Ada organizes and empowers Appalachian youth through her work in The STAY Project and The Appalachian Media Institute. She urged listeners to raise their voices against the injustices caused by destructive mining that are happening to communities such as hers. She spoke of health hazards posed to the people of her community and as a result, how many youth want to leave.

Stanley Sturgill of Lynch, told the group his story as a retired coal miner and mine inspector and how the rise of surface mining, especially MTR, is destroying Kentucky. Stanley was another person who participated in the sit-in at the governor’s office. He said that he loves his home and wants to die and be buried there but doesn’t want “to be shook out of the ground by Mountain Top Removal."