Black Lives Matter, ACLU, NAACP say Gov. Reynolds presented 'a guarantee' she intends to sign an executive order on felon voting rights

A coalition of advocacy groups and activists with Des Moines Black Lives Matter emerged from a meeting with Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday saying the governor had pledged to sign an executive order restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions.

"What she presented was a commitment — a guarantee — that she would be signing an executive order before the election, and then she said, by the latest, late summer into the early fall," said Matthew Bruce, an organizer with Des Moines Black Lives Matter.

Reynolds, a Republican, has not publicly confirmed that she plans to sign such an order. Her spokesperson, Pat Garrett, did not respond to questions about Monday's meeting.

But officials with the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and state Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, who were in the meeting, confirmed that Reynolds said she would sign an executive order and that she will do so by late summer or early fall — before November's election.

Iowa is the only state in the country that bans all felons from voting unless they apply individually to the governor's office to have their rights restored. More than 60,000 Iowans, including nearly one in 10 African American adults, are barred from voting in the state due to a prior felony conviction.

For the past two years, Reynolds has pushed the Legislature to approve an amendment to the state constitution to make the process of regaining voting rights automatic once felons have completed their sentences. But Republicans in the Iowa Senate killed the proposal each year. On Sunday, the Legislature adjourned without the Senate taking a vote on the measure.

Senate Republicans said that because it appeared that Reynolds planned to sign an executive order, the amendment would be unnecessary.

Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, said he believes that Reynolds' previous meeting with a group of Black Lives Matter activists on Friday gave the Senate an excuse not to act.

"I think that Friday gave cover for the Senate to back away from a piece of legislation they had no intention of passing," Abdul-Samad said.

About 50 members of Black Lives Matter Des Moines gathered at the Iowa Capitol on Monday morning, seeking to pressure Reynolds to sign an order. They chanted "let them vote" and "no justice, no peace" as organizers passed out water bottles and granola bars.

"We're going to make a bunch of noise, just like last time. We're going to let her know it's just as serious now as it was then. We're going to look for a commitment towards fair language — that means no loopholes, no cutouts," Bruce told activists ahead of the meeting with Reynolds.

But they emerged from Monday's meeting disappointed that Reynolds had not presented drafted language of what her executive order would look like — something they said she had promised to do on Friday.

"She gave us vague, vague answers like, 'Oh late summer, early fall we'll have something done.' But I don't think she's fully understanding the urgency of the moment that we're in right now," said Jaylen Cavil, a Black Lives Matter activist.

"Now, our problem is with her process that she says is going to take two or three months. It's a process that hasn't included us," Bruce said. "It's a process of organizations and lobbyists and representatives and public officials but none of those ... are the people themselves."

The activists said they would work to come up with language and criteria that they'd like to see in an executive order. That's also a goal of advocacy groups like the NAACP, which have been pushing for years for Reynolds to sign an order.

"If there was language, we certainly would have taken it from there, but we would prefer to have input on the initial language," said Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP.

Daniel Zeno, policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Iowa, said the fact that Reynolds made a clear commitment is progress.

"We know two important facts: It's gonna happen, and there's a timeline — and I think that's progress. We've been working on this for a long time, and now we know there will be one," he said.

Before last week, Reynolds had said she supported an amendment, not an order, because it would enshrine felon voting rights in the state's constitution so that future governors could not easily take the right away. But advocates noted that a constitutional amendment takes years to be approved and an order would have an immediate effect.

"In speaking with the governor on numerous occasions, the executive order was never off the table. ... but she always wanted to see if she could get that permanency first," Abdul-Samad said.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

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