Felon voting rights constitutional amendment won't advance this year

When Senate Republicans met Thursday to consider a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to former felons, Gov. Kim Reynolds didn't know how it would go.

Reynolds, a Republican, met with a key lawmaker and sent three members of her staff to witness an expected vote on the proposal by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But the uncertainty lasted up until the moment Sen. Brad Zaun said Thursday afternoon he was taking the measure off the committee's calendar, denying it a vote and effectively killing its chances of advancing this year.

Reynolds' office quickly released a statement.

"I am disappointed in today's setback, but I will not give up the fight for Iowans who deserve a second chance," Reynolds said in a statement. "It’s encouraging to have a strong coalition of supporters backing our proposed constitutional amendment. There’s more work to do, but I am committed to getting this done."

The Senate move shows the split among Republicans on the issue. Just last week, the Iowa House, which, like the Senate, is controlled by Republicans, passed the proposed amendment on a 95-2 vote. Reynolds, a Republican, hailed the move as a "strong bipartisan vote" and "a victory for Iowans who deserve a second chance."

But Zaun, R-Urbandale, said he had told Reynolds on Thursday that the Senate effort would be "an uphill climb" hampered by the lack of a second bill to clarify what it would mean for felons to have completed their sentences.

"This language, I believe, was not clear enough, and there was not any parameters in regards to what those restoration of those voting rights were," he said. 

Zaun said he expects to take up the issue again next year. He said he knows it was one of Reynolds' top legislative priorities for the current session, but that it lacks support from Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.

"I’ve been down here a long time. There’s been many governors that didn’t get everything they wanted," he said. "This is a process." 

There are still ways Republican Senate leaders could choose to revive the measure, but several lawmakers acknowledged the issue is not likely to move forward this year.

Amending the Iowa Constitution is a yearslong process. It requires amendments to be passed by two consecutive legislatures and then placed before Iowans in a statewide vote. If the Legislature passes the measure next year and again after the 2020 election, it could be put before voters in 2022, at the earliest.

For weeks, Senate Republicans expressed their doubts about the amendment's progress. Zaun's decision to remove the amendment from the committee calendar came after Republicans on the committee discussed the measure privately.

Democratic Senate Leader Janet Petersen of Des Moines said she was disappointed in Zaun's decision not to give the amendment a vote.

"It was refreshing to see us have a governor use the power of her office to try and expand voter rights and give Iowans a second chance," she said.

Petersen made an unsuccessful motion to bring up the bill after Zaun removed it from the calendar.

"I had told the governor’s office that she would receive strong support from my caucus. We believe in restoring voter rights in Iowa," Petersen said. She urged Reynolds to sign an executive order to immediately restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences, as previous Iowa governors have done.

The Senate committee’s decision means the issue will not come before the full Senate, where other Republicans had indicated they would have voted to advance the measure.

Ahead of the committee’s meeting, Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Ottumwa, gave an emotional speech about her late brother, Michael, whom she said had served in the Army and the Marines. Michael, she said, had been accused of theft and convicted of a felony.

"I don’t know if this story moves you or helps you, but there are good people out there who do bad things — misjudgments, make mistakes — when they are younger," she said. "And I would ask you — I don’t know where this is, but I’d ask you to remember Michael when you think about this story."

Some Republican lawmakers wanted to require complete payment of victim restitution, which can be tens of thousands of dollars, before felons became eligible to vote. The payment of restitution is not a part of the current process by which felons can apply to the governor's office to have their rights restored. Others also wanted to exclude people convicted of certain crimes, like homicides and sexual offenses, from being able to regain voting rights.

► More:Ex-felon: Requiring full restitution would mean I'd never get to vote

Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, voted for the amendment in the House. He said he wants to see those conditions met, but believes lawmakers would have addressed the issue with a separate bill before the Legislature had voted on the amendment again and advancing the amendment to voters.

"All of those things would have been part of the discussion and would have been put in code in this chamber before we would have passed it the second time," he said.

Iowans are broadly supportive of restoring voting rights to felons after they have completed their sentences, with 64% in favor, 29% opposed and 7% not sure, according to a recent Iowa Poll.

The current ban on felon voting has caused problems in Iowa with some legitimate voters being denied the chance to vote and some felons being able to vote, even though they should not.