DAY TWENTY-SEVEN - WELCOMING CITIZENS HOME

Sep 25

Day Twenty-seven | Florida Rights Restoration Coalition
662 Sawbuck Patriots | $6990 pledged today | $217,110 donated overall

Team:

We’re switching gears today, going to Florida, and doing something new - helping pay court fees and fines for people who have paid their debt to society, so they can vote in November - some, for the first time in decades.

In Florida, if you’re an ex-felon, you can vote - IF you pay the poll tax. (Yes. It’s 2020, and I am using a Jim Crow term like Poll Tax, on purpose, because it's an accurate description. Awful, I know.) Florida ex-felons can legally vote IF they have paid all their court fines and fees. If they haven’t paid them, or can’t, they're just flat-out disenfranchised.

There are a million former felons in Florida; 3/4 owe some form of court debt; most of them are too poor to pay their fines. (And the bulk of these people didn’t get out of the clink last week - this includes people who’ve been out of trouble for decades, but who still owe a fee for their own prosecution or imprisonment.)

This is flatly unfair. When you or I fail to pay a court fee, someone sends us letters and then hires a collection agency to call and yell at us, but we still get to vote. Not them. Not fair.

Earlier this year, a Florida court determined that this requirement was in fact an unfair and illegal disenfranchisement of Floridians. But a higher court overturned that finding earlier two weeks ago, because of course it did. Barbara Lagoa, one of the leading candidates being considered for the Supreme Court, served as the deciding vote to overturn the previous ruling, because of course she did.

I could explain about how the US justice system is structurally racist. But you already know that. I could point out that Florida isn’t exactly the most progressive place when it comes to criminal justice, but you also know that. I could tell you Florida is critical to Trump’s victory, and stopping him there might stop him cold, and you smart Sawbuck Patriots know that, as well. But here’s something you might NOT know - an all-hands-on-deck, three-week sprint to address and fix this inequity is underway.

It’s super-urgent. Floridians need to be registered in the next ten or so days in order to vote, so this is a giant kettle of NOW NOW NOW. People like Steven Spielberg, LeBron James, Mike Bloomberg, Michael Jordan, and John Legend are raising money and drawing attention to this urgent opportunity as I type; I heard from seven or eight of you in the past 48 hours about this being a place they want us to invest. I agree.

It’s good, common strategic sense to invest in this way. Instead of spending money trying to persuade Florida Rs to vote for Biden, or spending money to locate and persuade the few undecided people in the Sunshine State, this project a) helps ex-felons wipe their financial slates clean, b) gets them registered to vote just before an election, and c) puts them directly in touch with people who can educate them in real time on the importance and urgency of voting for Joe Biden, due to Donald Trump’s reactionary and archaic policies.

AND it shows people trying to redirect their lives kindness and compassion from strangers, which will accrue to the benefit of humanity.

Enough from me. Let’s go.

Sawbuck Patriots, it’s go time: click HERE and send $10 (or more) to the FRRC. Our collective effort will invest $6990 today.

Thank you.

- Alex

Alex Clemens

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN - WELCOMING CITIZENS HOME

Sawbuck Patriots, it’s go time: click HERE and send $10 (or more) to the FRRC. Our collective effort will invest $6990 today.

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT - AL GROSS

DAY TWENTY-SIX - MIKE ESPY

Join us - click HERE