Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 10-22-19

Political News
Trump Says His Florida Doral Resort Will No
Judge Rules Florida Can’t Block Felons From Voting, Even If They Have Unpaid Fines
Longer Host G-7 Summit
The right to vote for 1.4 million felons in Florida got a boost Friday when a federal judge ruled that the state can’t prevent felons from voting, even if they can’t afford to pay court-ordered fines and fees.
This latest chapter in the ongoing battle between voting rights activists and the Re- publican-led state legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis is a win for those who want their voting rights restored.
“We’re thrilled that the judge ruled in our favor and said voting should not be pay- to-play,” said Patti Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida.
Last November, Floridians overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that restored voting rights to most felons once they com- pleted their sentences, mak- ing it the largest expansion of voting rights in the country in 50 years. Thousands of felons registered after the amend- ment took effect on Jan. 8.
But in June, DeSantis signed a law that said only felons who had paid all fines, fees and restitution could reg- ister to vote. Voting advocates estimate that this would im- pact between 500,000 to 800,000 felons.
On Friday, U. S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled
Hinkle’s ruling technically applies to only 17 people named in the lawsuit, which was brought by the NAACP and several other groups. But experts expect it to be applied more broadly to other felons in the state.
Tampa pastor Clifford Tyson was one of the 17 felons cited in Hinkle’s opin- ion. He said he has tried sev- eral times to see if he owes any fines from decades-old con- victions for armed robbery and theft. He registered to vote on Jan. 8, and has voted in two local elections since then.
“I was so excited to vote for the first time in 42 years,” Tyson said. “I brought my 5- year-old grandson with me, he wanted to watch. When they handed me the ballot and di- rected me to the voting booth, I began to cry. Tears kept on flowing.”
But after DeSantis signed the law limiting which felons could register, Tyson said he is afraid to vote now.
The Florida Rights Restora- tion Coalition has raised nearly $1 million in donations to help felons pay outstanding fines, according to Neil Volz, the group’s political director. He said a statewide bus tour next month will offer “return- ing citizens” help figuring out fines and paying them.
Following widespread bi- partisan criticism, Presi- dent Donald Trump said Saturday his Doral resort in Florida would not host next year's Group of Seven sum- mit of world leaders after all.
"Based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irra- tional Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump Na- tional Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020," he tweeted. "We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immedi- ately."
The president had been under fire for the choice, an- nounced Thursday by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, because it could ultimately benefit him financially. Mulvaney said world leaders would be able to stay at his resort at cost.
But even pundits on Fox News, Trump's favored news outlet, criticized the move as a violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause, which forbids gifts of any kind to a president from
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
foreign leaders.
On Thursday former
Judge Andrew Napoli- tano said on Fox News that the choice would entail "about as direct and profound a violation of the emoluments clause as one could create."
"The constitution does not address profits," he said. "It addresses any present, as in a gift, any emolument, as in cash, of any kind."
Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Rest- oration Coalition, applauded the federal court ruling against lawmakers’ attempts to make voter registration harder for felons after they leave prison.
that the state can ask that the fines be paid, but it can’t bar anybody from voting if they can’t afford to pay.
He noted that while the Florida Supreme Court will hear a different lawsuit on the issue next month, time is run- ning out for felons who want to vote. Local elections will take place in November around the state, and the presidential primary is in March.
“When an eligible citizen misses an opportunity to vote, the opportunity is gone for- ever; the vote cannot later be cast,” Hinkle wrote. “So when the state wrongly pre- vents an eligible citizen from voting, the harm is irrepara- ble.”
U. S. Is Out Of The Picture In Syria-Turkey Crisis; Putin Now Owns This Mess
As U. S. President Don- ald Trump hailed the agreement his administra- tion negotiated with the Turks for northern Syria as "a great day for civilization," the Turks quickly dumped cold water over the White House's euphoria, refusing to even call the deal a cease- fire.
Only a few hours later, airstrikes and artillery fire could be felt in northern Syria as the Kurdish-domi- nated Syrian Democratic Forces accused Ankara and its proxies of severe ceasefire violations.
The mood both in Wash- ington and in the Middle East is that the ceasefire is not the real deal. It expires on Tuesday, October 22, the
same day Russian Presi- dent Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recip Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Sochi to discuss the future of Syria. It seems pretty clear: that's when the world will find out that the real deal will be for the fu- ture of this volatile region.
It's also clear that the fu- ture will, to a large extent, be determined by the Russian President. With Trump's abandonment of the Kurds, America's main allies in the fight against ISIS, and his de facto green lighting of Turkey's invasion of north- ern Syria, the White House maneuvered itself out of the Syria equation. For better or worse, Putin now owns the military and political mess
unfolding there.
But unlike the Trump ad-
ministration's hectic efforts at last-minute diplomacy to try to end the bloodshed it helped unleash, Putin at least seemed like a man with a plan.
Russia immediately started negotiations with the Kurds and Moscow's main ally, the Assad government, quickly reaching a deal to allow the Syrian military into Kurdish-held areas where Damascus has not had a presence for years in order to stave off the Turkish-led offensive. Moscow also quickly deployed its own military as a buffer to keep the Turks and their forces apart from the Kurds and Syrian government troops.
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2019