Evers Kills Bill That Would Have Made It More Difficult For Felons To Resume Voting
ACLU called proposed restrictions a 'modern-day poll tax.'
Voters fill out ballots during a presidential election Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, at Washington Park Senior Center in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed a bill that would have stopped many Wisconsinites from voting because of unpaid restitution or other court-related fines and fees.
The GOP-backed proposal was among the bills vetoed by the Democratic governor last week.
Currently, Wisconsinites with felony convictions can’t vote until they’ve finished their prison time as well as any probation, parole or extended supervision.
But the vetoed bill would have required Wisconsinites with felonies to pay any costs related to their convictions before their right to vote was restored.
Voter eligibility has long been a hot-button issue in Wisconsin — one of the nation’s swingiest swing states where statewide election results often come down to a margin of less than 1 percent.
In his veto message, Evers called the right to vote a “core value of our democracy” and said the legislation would have eroded that.
“This bill would create additional barriers to make it harder for individuals who have completed their sentences to have their right to vote restored,” Evers wrote. “My promise to Wisconsinites has always been that I will not sign legislation that makes it harder for eligible Wisconsinites to cast their ballot.”
Sponsor: Restrictions would have incentivized repayment
The bill’s Republican sponsors, however, said the changes would have promoted accountability while incentivizing people to pay their outstanding costs.
“It is a process to encourage the (payment of) restitution if it’s not being paid,” said state Sen. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, during a legislative hearing. “I will stand with the victims rather than the perpetrators, all day long.”
Meanwhile, Amanda Merkwae, a lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, called the proposal “a modern-day poll tax.” She said the Senate bill would disproportionately hurt low-income Wisconsinites and people of color.
“Today, most Americans rightfully look back at poll taxes as a disgraceful and racist stain on our democracy, which is what makes the emerging effort to reinvent them for the 21st century so horrifying,” Merkwae told Wisconsin’s Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. “In light of the profound racial disparities in Wisconsin’s criminal legal system, we know exactly who SB 95 will disenfranchise the most.”
In order to have voting rights restored, the bill says people with prior felonies would need pay all fines, costs, fees, surcharges and restitution “imposed in connection with the crime.”
That would include restitution that a judge orders someone to pay as compensation to victims. It would also include charges imposed by a court, such as surcharges for clerk costs and DNA analysis.
Additionally, Merkwae says the bill’s language appears broad enough to include debts that someone incurs as part of their incarceration. She noted, for example, jails and prisons in Wisconsin charge inmates for services, including making phone and video calls to their loved ones. And, in Wisconsin, some county jails bill incarcerated people for daily “pay-to-stay” fees intended to partly cover that person’s costs for room and board.
ACLU: Bill would have caused confusion
It’s not clear exactly how many Wisconsinites would be barred from voting if the bill became law — there’s no centralized database showing how many Wisconsinites owe conviction-related payments.
And Merkwae said the bill likely would have exacerbated confusion about who can and cannot vote.
“We don’t have that centralized system to identify the exact amount of an individual’s financial obligations to (those) entities that would need to be satisfied for re-enfranchisement,” Merkwae said in an interview. “Maybe a clerk or a DOC (Department of Corrections) agent would say, ‘Yes, you’re good to vote,’ and it’d be difficult to be certain that that statement was correct, because there have been discrepancies. So it could lead to people, even if they were eligible, being disenfranchised from voting.”
About 23,000 people are serving sentences in state prisons across Wisconsin. An additional 60,000-some Wisconsinites are still known as “on paper” because they’re being monitored while on probation, parole or extended supervision.
Bill also would have judges to impose
The voting-related bill vetoed by Evers on Friday also included a section that would have restricted how judges can impose restitution on human traffickers.
Under current Wisconsin law, judges have some flexibility when ordering someone to pay restitution to their victims. For instance, a court can order that restitution to be paid immediately. They can also tell someone to pay it in installments, or within a specified time frame before that person completes community supervision.
But under the bill authored by Feyen and Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, a judge would have to order that restitution be paid “immediately” when someone was sentenced in a human trafficking case.
If that person doesn’t pay immediately, the bill says the court would have to pursue repayment by taking legal action against the trafficker’s property.
“This provides much-needed funds to the victims to use for housing, medical or mental health care or other necessary expenses,” Feyen wrote in testimony attached to the bill. “Without this change, victims often must wait until the completion of the perpetrators sentence or go through lengthy civil actions to collect restitution through wage garnishment or the seizure of property.”
But in his veto message, Evers raised concerns about that section of the legislation.
“I object to limiting the discretion of judges to address the circumstances in front of them by creating a separate restitution procedure for certain crimes,” the governor wrote. “I am concerned that this provision of the bill would set a precedent that would elevate some crime victims over others.”
Evers quashes bill that would bar Wisconsinites from voting over unpaid court fees was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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