Michael Bloomberg and some of his billionaire buddies have donated more than $16 million to help ex-felons in Florida vote in the November election, the Washington Post reported.
Bloomberg, who briefly ran for president earlier this year and was New York’s mayor from 2002-2013, led the charge to give money to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which has now raised $20 million.
The FRRC is working to pay fines, restitution and court fees for thousands of former felons across the state.
In 2018, 64% of Floridians voted in favor of Amendment 4, which allowed released felons to vote so long as they had not been previously convicted of murder or sex offenses. The amendment overturned a Jim Crow-era state law and was expected to give more than a million people their votes back.
But in 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican-majority legislature passed a bill requiring ex-felons to pay all fines and fees before they could vote. A Republican-majority appeals court ruled earlier this month that DeSantis’ law was good-to-go for November.
“Fueled by” that ruling, the FRRC “has seen a surge of donations from all 50 states (and territories). More than 44,000 individuals have contributed towards FRRC’s goal,” the organization said in a press release Tuesday.
Many released convicts in Florida are too poor to pay their own fines, don’t know how much they owe in the first place, or both.
Felon voting laws vary from state-to-state across the country. Maine and Vermont allow people to vote while imprisoned, but 11 other states never restore voting rights to convicted felons.
Florida’s legal battle is of national importance because of the state’s famously tight presidential elections, which often come down a few thousands votes. Earlier this year, Michael Jordan donated $500,000 to help pay fines for Florida’s ex-felons, and the More Than a Vote organization, co-led by LeBron James, donated $100,000.
———
©2020 New York Daily News
Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.