Restoration of voting and other civil rights in 2021

Voting rights

In the first half of 2021, three states enacted laws authorizing automatic restoration of the vote to anyone not actually incarcerated for a felony, and a fourth state did so through executive order, while beginning the process of amending its constitution to accomplish this result.

New York and Connecticut repealed provisions disenfranchising anyone on parole, while Washington restored the vote to anyone no longer confined for a felony. In March 2021, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order restoring the vote to 69,000 people who had been released from prison but had not yet completed their supervision, culminating a process of automatic expansion of the franchise by gubernatorial executive order that began in 2013. The Virginia legislature approved a proposal to amend the state constitution that, if approved a second time by the next legislature and by a referendum, will disenfranchise only people who are sentenced to a prison term for a felony and will restore their right to vote upon release from prison.

Three other states clarified the timing of restoration of voting rights or facilitated their exercise. Louisiana clarified its law to ensure that a return to jail for violating parole will not extend the 5-year period after which a person released on parole may vote. Maryland passed a law to ensure that individuals detained in Baltimore’s jail may vote, and Illinois passed a law to facilitate registration by those exiting prison.

At the federal level, President Biden issued an Executive Order titled “Promoting Access to Voting” whose Section 9 (“Ensuring Access to Voter Registration for Eligible Individuals in Federal Custody”) requires the Attorney General to take four important actions to ensure access, for people in federal custody or under federal supervision, to voter registration and educational materials on restoration of voting rights.

Jury eligibility

Connecticut limited ineligibility for jury service to a period of actual incarceration, and Louisiana replaced its lifetime bar with a five-year period after release from prison or probation.

Office-holding 

Illinois recognized its governor’s authority to restore eligibility for municipal office to a person with a federal conviction, by granting a certificate of restoration of rights.

Firearms

Kansas expanded the effect of expungement to restore firearms rights.

More details on these laws are available in the Restoration of Rights Project.

Second Chance Month: A Federal Reintegration Agenda

In 2017, Prison Fellowship declared April Second Chance Month for the first time. The designation has since gained support from Congress, the White House, state and local bodies, and nongovernmental organizations, as an opportunity to raise awareness about the collateral consequences of arrest or conviction along with the importance of providing second-chance opportunities for people with a record to reintegrate into society.

CCRC’s flagship resource, the Restoration of Rights Project provides 50-state resources detailing current law and practice for four types of second-chance remedies: (1) restoration of civil and firearms rights; (2) pardoning; (3) expungement, sealing, and other record relief; and (4) limits on consideration of criminal records in employment and occupational licensing. Our annual reports on new legislation document the astonishing pace of state reform action on these issue since 2013. We are proud to see these resources utilized by impacted individuals, attorneys, advocates, journalists, scholars, lawmakers, courts, and others to understand second-chance remedies, pursue relief, and bring about reforms.

President Biden’s Proclamation on Second Chance Month declares that the criminal justice system must offer “meaningful opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation”:

Every person leaving incarceration should have housing, the opportunity at a decent job, and health care. A person’s conviction history should not unfairly exclude them from employment, occupational licenses, access to credit, public benefits, or the right to vote. Certain criminal records should be expunged and sealed so people can overcome their past.

The President took an important step toward this goal when he directed federal agencies to facilitate voting for those in federal custody or under federal supervision.

During the wave of criminal record reform that began around 2013, every state legislature has taken steps to chip away at the negative effects of a record, thereby supporting opportunities to earn a living, access public benefits, education, and housing, regain voting rights, and otherwise reintegrate into society. Many states have entirely remade their record relief systems—authorizing or expanding expungement, sealing, set-aside, certificates of relief, and/or diversion—and limited the consideration of arrest and conviction records in employment and licensing. State reforms continue to accelerate in 2021.

Congress has belatedly become interested in the reintegration agenda, limiting background checks in federal employment and contracting in 2019, and removing some barriers to public benefits in 2020. However, many federal barriers remain, and individuals with federal records have no access to the kind of relief mechanisms now available in most states. Recent controversies over presidential pardoning offer an incentive to wean the federal justice system from its dependence upon presidential action for the sort of routine relief these mechanisms promise.

In honor of Second Chance Month, we recommend that the Biden Administration work with Congress to pursue an ambitious and bipartisan legislative approach to criminal record reforms in the following four areas:

  • Record relief: Authorize federal courts to expunge certain records, grant certificates of relief, and increase use to deferred adjudication; give effect to state relief in federal law; prohibit dissemination of certain records by background screeners and the FBI; and, provide relief from firearms dispossession.
  • Federal public benefits: End record-related restrictions in financial assistance to small businesses, SNAP and TANF benefits, and student aid.
  • Employment & licensing: Establish enforceable standards for consideration of criminal record in federal employment and contracting, and limit record-based restrictions in federally-regulated occupations.
  • Voting rights: Allow voting in federal elections regardless of a person’s criminal record unless currently incarcerated for a felony conviction.

Our full federal agenda details specific measures by which Congress can accomplish these goals.

CCRC proposes a reintegration agenda for the 117th Congress

The new Congress has an opportunity to make significant bipartisan progress on criminal justice reform, including reducing barriers to successful reintegration for people with a criminal record.1 This agenda recommends specific measures by which Congress can accomplish this.

During the wave of criminal record reform that began around 2013, every state legislature has taken some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a record, thereby supporting opportunities to earn a living, access public benefits, education, and housing, regain voting rights, and otherwise reintegrate into society.2 Many states have entirely remade their record relief systems—authorizing or expanding expungement, sealing, set-aside, certificates of relief, and/or deferred adjudication—and limited the consideration of arrest and conviction records in employment and licensing.3

Congress has belatedly become interested in the reintegration agenda, limiting background checks in federal employment and contracting in 2019, and removing some barriers to public benefits in 2020. However, many federal barriers remain, and individuals with federal records have no access to the kind of relief mechanisms now available in most states. Recent controversies over presidential pardoning offer an incentive to wean the federal justice system from its dependence upon presidential action for the sort of routine relief these mechanisms promise.

During the pandemic, the need to access opportunities and resources is perhaps unprecedented. We therefore urge Congress and the Biden Administration to take an ambitious and bipartisan approach to criminal record reforms in the four areas described below:

  • Record relief: authorize federal courts to expunge certain records, grant certificates of relief, and increase use of deferred adjudication; give effect to state relief in federal law; prohibit dissemination of certain records by background screeners and the FBI; provide relief from firearms dispossession.
  • Federal public benefits: end record-related restrictions in small business relief, SNAP and TANF benefits, and student financial aid.
  • Employment & licensing: establish enforceable standards for consideration of criminal record in federal employment and contracting, and limit record-based restrictions in federally-regulated occupations.
  • Voting rights: allow voting in federal elections unless a person is serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution.

CCRC’s full federal agenda can be accessed here, and is reprinted below.

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Are Trump’s Pardons a Blessing in Disguise?

The title of this post is the title of my piece in Lawfare arguing that, in response to President Trump’s reckless pardoning,  Congress should reroute many of pardon’s routine functions into the federal courts. The piece is reprinted below:


Are Trump’s Pardons a Blessing in Disguise?

As President Trump’s irregular and self-serving pardons roll out, incoming President Biden has been urged to repair or replace the process for advising the president on the use of this extraordinary constitutional power.

It makes sense that critics have directed their ire and reform energies toward the mechanics of the pardon process, particularly since President Trump is on the record as disdaining it. But improvements in the process will not solve the problem laid bare by this president’s reckless pardoning. We should instead be asking more basic questions about what if any role the pardon power should play in the ordinary operation of the federal justice system. That system has asked far too much of pardon in recent years, and increased demand has played a major role in the power’s abuse. Congress needs to reroute many of pardon’s routine functions into the federal courts.

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“The Many Roads to Reintegration”: A 50-state report on laws restoring rights and opportunities

We are pleased to release a new report describing the present landscape of laws in the United States aimed at restoring rights and opportunities after an arrest or conviction. This report, titled The Many Roads to Reintegration, is an update and refresh of our previous national survey, last revised in 2018.

The report covers voting and firearms rights, an array of record relief remedies such as expungement and pardon, and consideration of criminal record in employment and occupational licensing.

In each section of the report we assign a grade to each state for each type of relief. We collate these grades to produce an overall ranking on the nine categories that we graded. That ranking is reproduced below.

We are encouraged by the amazing progress that has been made in the past few years toward neutralizing the effect of a criminal record since the present reform era got underway less than a decade ago. The last two years in particular have produced a bumper crop of new laws in almost every U.S. jurisdiction.

Some of our top performers have been long-time leaders in promoting reintegration, including Illinois, Utah, and Minnesota. But some of the most progressive lawmaking has come from states newer to the field, like Nevada, Colorado, and North Dakota. These and the other states in our Top Ten set an example that we hope will inspire other jurisdictions in the months and years to come.

The executive summary of the report is reprinted below. The full report is available in PDF and HTML formats.

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Loss and restoration of voting and firearms rights after conviction: A national survey

*Update (9/8/20): the full national report, “The Many Roads to Reintegration,” is now available.

Earlier today we announced the forthcoming publication of a national report on mechanisms for restoring rights and opportunities following arrest or conviction, titled “The Many Roads to Reintegration.”  As promised, here is the first chapter of that report on loss and restoration of voting and firearms rights, a subject that needs little or no introduction.  The research, drawn from the Restoration of Rights Project, reveals a trend since 2015 toward expanding opportunities to regain the vote that has accelerated just in the past two years.

This trend seems particularly timely in light of the pending constitutional challenge to Florida’s restoration system, which raises the question whether the state may constitutionally require people to pay outstanding legal financial obligations (LFOs) before being allowed to vote, even if they cannot afford to do so.  There are now only two states in addition to Florida in which the vote is permanently lost for those unable to pay all LFOs associated with a disqualifying conviction.  An additional seven states permanently deny the vote for those unable to pay certain types of LFOs.  (Early next week, we will publish a report surveying state laws and practices on this issue, which will be included in abbreviated form in an amicus brief we plan to file in the court of appeals in support of the Florida plaintiffs.)

In contrast to voting rights law, there has been almost no change in the past half dozen years in how state and federal law treats firearms restoration after conviction.  In most states, firearms dispossession remains indefinite for anyone convicted of a felony, and restoration depends upon petitioning a court for discretionary relief or asking for a pardon. In 11 of the 26 states in which all firearms rights are permanently lost upon conviction of any felony, and for those with a federal conviction, a pardon is the exclusive restoration mechanism.

A PDF of this chapter is available here.  Coming next week, the report’s chapter on “Employment and Occupational Licensing.”

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CCRC reports on criminal record reforms in 2019

We are pleased to publish our annual report on criminal record reforms enacted during the past calendar year.  This is the fourth in a series of reports since 2016 on new laws aimed at avoiding or mitigating the collateral consequences of arrest and conviction.  This year we have included for the first time a Report Card grading the progress of the most (and least) productive state legislatures in 2019.  The press release accompanying the report is reprinted below:

Report finds record-breaking number of criminal record reforms enacted in 2019

February 17, 2020

Washington, D.C. — The Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) has released a new report documenting the astonishing number of laws passed in 2019 aimed at promoting reintegration for individuals with a criminal record.  Last year, 43 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government enacted an extraordinary 153 laws to provide criminal record relief or to alleviate the collateral consequences of arrest and conviction, consequences that may otherwise last a lifetime and frequently have little or no public safety rationale. 

The year 2019 was the most productive legislative year since a wave of “fair chance” reforms began in 2013, a period CCRC has documented in a series of legislative reports (2013-2016, 2017, and 2018). 

CCRC’s 2019 report, titled “Pathways to Reintegration: Criminal Record Reforms in 2019,” is available here.

This report is our first to include a Report Card on how state legislatures performed during the year in advancing the goals of reintegration,” said CCRC Executive Director Margaret Love. “We wanted to recognize New Jersey as Reintegration Champion for having the most consequential legislative record in 2019, including three important new laws authorizing clean slaterecord relief, restoring voting rights, and curbing driver’s license suspensions.

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California poised to become third state to adopt “clean slate” record relief

On September 23, the California legislature sent AB 1076 to California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until October 13 to sign or veto this potentially transformative legislation.  If enacted, AB 1076 would make California the third state (after Pennsylvania (2018) and Utah (2019)) to authorize “clean slate” record relief, a direction to authorities to seal certain arrest and conviction records automatically. (Illinois, New York, and California have enacted automatic relief for certain marijuana convictions, and several states have automatic relief for non-convictions.)  AB 1076 creates a parallel eligibility scheme that overlaps but is not exactly coincident with the petition-based system, as well as a new procedure for automatic relief.  The specific provisions are described generally below, and more fully after the break.

AB 1076 would not modify eligibility for relief under California’s existing scheme of judicial remedies for people with criminal records, via sealing as well as dismissal and set-aside.  Rather, effective January 1, 2021, it would create a new process obviating the requirement of an individually-filed petition or motion in most cases.  If this bill is signed into law, California would break new ground in becoming the first state to extend automatic “clean slate” relief to felony convictions (other than for marijuana possession).

A less-noted but significant feature of AB 1076 is its expansion of the effect of relief for conviction records:  it provides for non-disclosure of records of convictions that have been dismissed or set aside, whether automatically or by petition, and makes this provision applicable both to court records (effective February 1, 2021) and to records in the state repository (effective January 1, 2021), except in certain specified circumstances where disclosure is mandated by law.  As it is, and notwithstanding the widespread use of the term “expungement” to describe its general relief scheme for convictions, California has no law authorizing limits on public access to most conviction records, whether held by the court or by the state repository.  This would change in 2021, if this law is enacted.  (Most non-conviction records are now eligible for sealing by petition under California law.)  Note that, like most state repositories, California’s repository permits disclosure only to government agencies and specified private entities, so that the new limits apply within the class of otherwise authorized repository users.

The sponsors of AB 1076 emphasize that making relief automatic without the need for individual action will significantly reduce “barriers to employment and housing opportunities for millions of Californians.”  They point to the key findings of J.J. Prescott and Sonja Starr’s 2019 study of record-sealing in Michigan: 1) people who had their conviction records sealed tended to have improved employment outcomes and lower recidivism rates than the general population; but 2) only a small percentage (6.5%) of those individuals eligible for set-aside and sealing actually applied, likely because of the complexity and burdens of filing a petition for relief with the court.  While no comparable study has been done for California, experience with that state’s marijuana-sealing law suggests that the low “take-up” rate is similar to the one Prescott and Starr found in Michigan.

If California’s new law is enacted, beginning in 2021 the state will automatically grant relief for many arrests not resulting in conviction, for infraction and misdemeanor convictions, and for some less serious felony convictions.  For eligible non-convictions—misdemeanor and some felony arrests—sealing will become automatic.  (However, a significant set of felony arrests not leading to conviction are excluded, as discussed below, although most of these dispositions remain eligible for petition-based relief.)  For eligible convictions, dismissal and set-aside will be automatic provided that a number of additional eligibility requirements are satisfied, including that a person must not be required to register as a sex offender, or be currently subject to prosecution, supervision, or incarceration for any offense.  Prosecutors and probation officers may object to automatic conviction relief in individual cases on “based on a showing that granting such relief would pose a substantial threat to the public safety,” and such an objection may be tested in a court hearing.

A major shortcoming of AB 1076 — in contrast to the “clean slate” laws enacted in Pennsylvania and Utah—is that its automatic relief is prospective only.  That is, relief is automatic only for arrests and convictions occurring after the law’s effective date.  Those with arrests and convictions occurring before 2021 would still have to apply to the court for relief.  Though the original bill had applied retroactively, the Assembly amended the bill to exclude arrests and convictions occurring before January 1, 1973, and then the Senate further amended it to exclude those occurring before January 1, 2021.  Presumably these changes were based on financial and logistical considerations.  The annual cost for the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and courts to carry out the final bill is estimated to total between about $2 and $5 million each year.  Moreover, the bill’s effective date, January 1, 2021, is specifically subject to an appropriation in the annual budget, and the State’s Department of Justice has indicated it “would need the implementation date to be delayed to July 1, 2023 for proper implementation.”  Despite challenges in implementation, we hope that, as the new automated system is developed, it will be feasible to extend relief to records predating 2021.

Of course, as noted, the provisions providing for non-disclosure of conviction records would apply to all cases dismissed or set-aside, without regard to when or by what process this relief was granted.

We will now describe in detail California’s clean slate legislation, which would add two new sections to the Penal Code, 851.93 and 1203.425, dealing with arrests and convictions, respectively, and amend the section of the Penal Code that deals with state records systems, 11105.

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Updated report on 2018 fair chance and expungement reforms

On January 10, 2019, we released a report documenting the extraordinary number of laws passed in 2018 aimed at reducing barriers to successful reintegration for individuals with a criminal record.  Since that time, we discovered five additional laws enacted in 2018 (in AL, PA, OR, MO, and the U.S. Virgin Islands), and have updated our report accordingly.

In 2018, 32 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands enacted at least 61 new laws aimed at avoiding or mitigating the collateral consequences of arrest and conviction, consequences that may otherwise last a lifetime. The CCRC report analyzes last year’s lawmaking and summarizes all 61 new authorities, which include 57 statutes, 3 executive orders, and one ballot initiative.

Last year saw the most productive legislative year since a wave of “fair chance” reforms began in 2013.  CCRC documented these earlier developments in reports on the 2013-2016 reforms and 2017 reforms.  In the period 2012–2018, every state legislature has in some way addressed the problem of reintegration.  Congress has not enacted any laws dealing with the problems presented by collateral consequences for more than a decade.

The state laws enacted in 2018 aim to break down legal and other barriers to success in the courts, the workplace, the pardon process, and at the ballot box:

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Press release: New report on 2018 fair chance and expungement reforms (updated)

Washington, D.C. — The Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) has released a new report documenting the extraordinary number of laws passed in 2018 aimed at reducing barriers to successful reintegration for individuals with a criminal record.  In the past twelve months, 32 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have enacted 61 new laws aimed at avoiding or mitigating the collateral consequences of arrest and conviction, consequences that may otherwise last a lifetime.  The CCRC report analyzes the past year’s lawmaking and summarizes all 61 new authorities, which include 57 statutes, 3 executive orders, and one ballot initiative.  The report, titled “Reducing Barriers to Reintegration: Fair chance and expungement reforms in 2018,” is available to download here

Last year saw the most productive legislative year since a wave of “fair chance” reforms began in 2013.  CCRC documented these earlier developments in reports on the 2013-2016 reforms and 2017 reforms.  In the period 2012–2018, every state legislature has in some way addressed the problem of reintegration.  Congress has not enacted any laws dealing with the problems presented by collateral consequences for more than a decade.

The state laws enacted in 2018 aim to break down legal and other barriers to success in the courts, the workplace, the pardon process, and at the ballot box:

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