Statewide Iowa — (RI) — Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds is planning to call on Iowa lawmakers to pass a series of criminal justice reforms — and a new path for restoring voting rights to an estimated 52-thousand Iowa felons may be among her proposals.
Governor Reynolds says she’s just begun discussing options with her staff.
Iowa, Florida and Kentucky have been the only states to permanently bar felons from voting once their sentences have been completed, unless the governor acts to restore voting rights to an individual applicant. Earlier this month voters in Florida passed a referendum to override that policy, restoring voting rights to about one million felons.
In addition, a legislative advisory board last week recommended that Iowa’s current policy on felon voting rights be abandoned. Reynolds has continued the process set up by her predecessor, Terry Branstad, that requires felons to apply to the governor to have their voting rights restored. In the 18 months Reynolds has been governor, she’s granted that request to 88 felons.
Governor Reynolds says her staff worked to make sure all the applications for voting rights restoration were processed before Election Day. In 2005, Governor Tom Vilsack issued an executive order that automatically restored voting rights to felons who had been released from prison and completed their parole, but in 2011 Governor Terry Branstad rescinded that, reverting to the voting rights restrictions for felons he had in force during his previous 16 years in office.
