Florida committee approves bill requiring felons to pay court fees before voting

A Florida House committee on Tuesday approved a measure that could significantly curtail a state constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to former felons. 

The measure, which would require felons to pay all court fees and costs before becoming eligible to vote, passed along a party-line vote in the Republican-led committee, according to The Tampa Bay Times. 

{mosads}The Times noted that the felons would be required to pay back all court fines even if they weren’t handed down by a judge as part of their sentence. A previous standard in Florida only mandated that felons pay back restitution to their victims in order to get their civil rights back.  

The approval of the measure comes just months after Florida voters approved an amendment automatically restoring voting rights to approximately 1.5 million felons in the state. 

Former offenders who have completed “all terms of their sentence including parole or probation” had their voting rights automatically restored in January. The measure does not apply to Florida residents convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who will reportedly be considered individually by the state’s Clemency Review Board. 

Proponents of the legislation, Amendment 4, have voiced outrage over the recent move from Florida Republicans in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee.

“It’s blatantly unconstitutional as a poll tax,” state Rep. Adam Hattersley (D) told The Tampa Bay Times. 

Committee chairman James Grant (R), however, dismissed the idea that paying back fines had a connection to a poll tax. 

“To suggest that this is a poll tax inherently diminishes the atrocity of what a poll tax actually was,” Grant said. “All we’re doing is following statute. All we’re doing is following the testimony of what was presented before the Florida Supreme Court explicitly acknowledging that fines and court costs are part of a sentence.”

Advocates of Amendment 4 reportedly said that completing a sentence could include paying fees and court costs while making arguments before the state’s Supreme Court. 

Neil Volz, political director for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, told the Times that “mistakes were made” when those advocates spoke before the court.