The Criminalization of Civic Engagement in Nebraska
by Schmeeka Simpson
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”
Consent: to agree to do or allow something: to give permission for something to happen or be done.
On August 9th, The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation sent me to the Nebraska Summit on Justice and Disparities, where I first learned about the possible repealing of LB53. I was further SHOCKED AND DISMAYED to learn that citizens that have been using their legal right to vote for the last 19 years could be charged with a felony if they tried to vote now. A Class IV felony to be exact, subject up to 2 years in prison, 12 months post-release supervision, and a fine up to 10,000 or both. A person could be charged for registering a person with a felony to vote or if a person with a felony tries to register themselves. These penalties could be valid even if the person didn’t know that the rules had changed without their knowledge or consent. A quick google search reminded me that this is not the first time voting has been used to disenfranchise or even criminalize whole groups of people in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
The United States has a long history of withholding or criminalizing the ability of anyone to vote that doesn’t fit the agenda of land-owning white males. The writers of the Constitution couldn’t decide whether only the votes of white property owner’s vs non-white property owners should matter, so they left the issue up to the states.
Article I Section 4, (AKA, The Elections Clause) of the Constitution says:
The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations. (Library).
The supreme court has interpreted this to mean the writers of the constitution enabled states to “provide a complete code for congressional elections, not only as to times and places, but in relation to notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns.2 The Court has further recognized the states’ ability to establish sanctions for violating election laws3 as well as authority over recounts4 and primaries. (Const.) The states quickly decided that only property-owning white males could vote until about 1860, then white non-property owners could vote, which left Africans, African Americans, Women, Native Americans, and any non-English speakers without the fundamental right to consent to participate under their governance. From 1860-1868 Black men tried to gain their foothold in the US patriarchal order of power but were met with violence, hate, and even death from all levels and classes.
“When local Black men staged a march to support the convention, the seething opposition erupted in violence that indiscriminately killed Black people in the area.”
In Louisiana on July 30th, 1866 “For several hours, the police and mob, in mutual and bloody emulation, continued the butchery in the hall and on the street, until nearly two hundred people were killed and wounded,” concluded a Congressional Committee formed to investigate the massacre. “How many were killed will never be known. But we cannot doubt there were many more than set down in the official list in evidence.”
There are countless cases where Black people voting ended in attacks, violence, fraud, and disenfranchisement.
In 1868, the 14th amendment granted Black People citizenship but did not guarantee the right of Black People to vote. Finally in 1870 the 15th amendment was ratified, which gave Black men only the right to vote.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
None of these constitutional amendments stopped the disenfranchisement of the Black vote, whether male or female. Poll taxes to literacy tests, lynchings and mob violence all produced a chilling effect which discouraged people from even trying to vote due to fear of the loss of life and livelihood, particularly across the south. The Voting Rights act of 1965 was passed to supposedly eradicate voter disenfranchisement, but the Hydra of oppression has many heads that never seem to die.
“Felony disenfranchisement policies that ban citizens from voting due to past criminal convictions have proved the most enduring and persistent remnant of 19th century voter discrimination efforts – shielded from challenge by the very Fourteenth Amendment recently celebrated for 150 years of ensuring equal justice.”
Here in Nebraska, complete voter disenfranchisement of felons was imposed unless they first waited 10 years and THEN granted a pardon by the Board of Pardons, until 2005 with the passage of LB53. LB53 allowed system impacted felons the right to vote if they fully completed their sentences and waited two years.
“This significant reform was estimated at the time of the law’s passage (LB53) to affect approximately 59,000 Nebraskans.” (ACLU)
This year, 2024, The Legislature passed LB20, which allowed all system impacted voters that have paid their debt to society to vote immediately upon completion and eliminated the 2-yr waiting period. Shortly before the law was to go into effect the Attorney General released his opinion claiming that not only was LB20 an unconstitutional usurpation of power from the Board of Pardons, so was LB 53.
“More recent reports indicate that approximately 7,819 former felons in Nebraska were restricted from voting in the 2010 elections.”-ACLU
Every year, the Nebraska Department of Corrections estimates 2,000 people with a felony conviction complete their sentence and are returned to their communities. Given the large number of impacted Nebraskans, it is essential that election officials are familiar with former felons’ eligibility.” -ACLU.
It is indeed a large number of votes lost, especially this year, a key election year, that mainly impacts the Blue Dot where most of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), live in Nebraska. Taking away the voting rights of upwards of 100,000 system impacted people during this election is a political power move that must be combatted at all costs. It effectively does the job of eliminating the 2nd electoral vote the winner-take-all legislation would have done.
Article I, Section 22 of the Nebraska State Constitution says: “All elections shall be free; and there shall be no hindrance or impediment to the right of a qualified voter to exercise the elective franchise.”-ACLU
I started this article with a quote: “Governments are instituted among men”. Full Stop here. The use of the word men is not simply a misnomer that describes “everyone”, because everyone was not considered people. Women were not (and still are not in a lot of ways) considered people, nor children, slaves, or any other group left out of the Constitution; but considered property, without the same legal, religious, medical, property, or personhood rights as men.
Because why does your mule need rights? Why would you let your horse vote? How stupid would you be to let your cow pastor a church or own land, a bank account, a credit card? That would imply they had the ability to think, reason, plan, and GOD FORBID… CONSENT, or more importantly, DENY CONSENT to the circumstances that rule their lives. Being charged with a felony takes away the personhood of a being, which at its core is the Right to Consent.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act, PREA was signed into law based off the idea that prisoners cannot consent.
The 2nd part of the opening quote is deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”
All disenfranchised groups that were and are still considered property by those who wrote the U.S. Constitution, State Constitutions, The Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence must fight for the right to consent.
Every person that was originally reduced to property by the Founding Fathers is STILL fighting for their right to consent, from these corrupted documents even to this day. Contrary to popular opinion these were not documents of freedom, independence and equality, for most people, these are the very documents that enshrined into law and US society the ideas of disenfranchisement, racism, sexism and every other bigoted, hypocritical, bias we suffer from today.
IF IT WASN’T FOR THESE DOCUMENTS OF FREEDOM AND JUSTICE ORIGINALLY DENYING CONSENT AND PERSONHOOD, WE WOULD NOT HAVE TO FIGHT FOR THESE BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS NOW.
Your vote is your right to consent to be governed and your right to deny consent to be governed. Only prisoners, slaves, and animals do not have these legal rights to consent.
There’s not even enough room to discuss the sheer hypocrisy of it all, especially from a large group of people who claim to be Christians/Religious and followers of the Way. How can a felon run for President, but a felon can’t vote for the President?? And where is Jesus with a whip when you need him?
Sigh… Why do we fight so hard to live in a world that doesn’t want us? That only wants the consent of the people THAT AGREE WITH THEM and fit their agenda?
The truth is these men in power, clearly do want us, and the system isn’t broken, its working exactly the way it was originally designed. They want us to be a top-down government of slaves with free labor, that are taxed without representation, with no consent, like we used to be, that made America rich and great for some and poor and hell for most. The easiest way to achieve that is to start with the historically enslaved, women, Black people, Felons…but let’s take race, gender, age, etc out of the question and talk about ownership. Non-property owners, how do you feel about having costs and services you pay for, taxed without your consent, to alleviate the taxes of property owners? Oh, and since we’re discussing ownership, guess who has the lowest rates of home, property, and land ownership? The same groups historically targeted by voter suppression across the board.
So, what is the Call to Action?
Everyone in this state should file complaints with their Senators, and then go online and file complaints directly with the Attorney General, the Governor and the Secretary of State and demand the restoration of the vote NOW because their jobs are on the line. Demand as a People that anyone who is required to pay taxes has the right to representation, regardless of their legal status. Maine, Vermont, and Washington D.C. do it.
We can do it too.
Stay educated and inform your system impacted community members to not try and vote or register to vote until the Nebraska Supreme Court decides on the legality of the law.
Show up as a watchful citizen of the 2nd house to the Nebraska Supreme Court Hearing Aug. 28th, 2024, 9am in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Demand a constitutional amendment in the next legislative session that grants the Legislature full autonomy to make and uphold laws that can reduce system impacted voter suppression.
Donate to organizations doing the work: The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, RISE, Civic Nebraska, ACLU, The Nebraska Civic Engagement Table, Stand In For Nebraska, and more. Where you spend your money is an indicator of what is important to you, and I certainly hope with agendas like Project 2025 on the horizon that voter suppression is considered of the highest importance.
The sad part is that voter suppression tactics hurt Democrats AND Republicans, Black People, White People, EVERYONE. The lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of system impacted voters include a Democrat, Republican, and an Independent. The state is obviously working on behalf of the system and not the people, and actively trying to remove personhood and consent from our neighbors, loved ones, friends, even whole communities. We must stand up and say keep your hands off our votes, we are human beings not slaves, we have paid our debts to society and our voices matter just as much as our dollars.
Remind the Civil Servants that they serve THE PEOPLE they are disenfranchising and not the other way around and pull to pieces the layers of oppression that keep the system moving. Once we get into the mindset that a system that isn’t broken can’t be fixed, we can start to have conversations that center dismantling oppression in all its facets and start transforming our society.
Matt: 23:25-28
25 “How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but on the inside, they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup,[l] so that its outside may also be clean.
27 “How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of impurity. 28 In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
REFERENCES
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/consent#:~:text=%3A%20to%20agree%20to%20do%20or,at%20first%20but%20finally%20consented
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-african-americans/
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S4-C1-2/ALDE_00013577/
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2ou2BhCCARIsANAwM2EHs-YK9GSlTq7DXBADQ5-1ZLpgHP8cgobY0Ffpn7ILMfse2tYjaSwaAoDjEALw_wcB
https://eji.org/news/race-voting-and-a-gaping-loophole-a-critical-look-at-the-14th-amendment/
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xv
https://ago.nebraska.gov/sites/default/files/docs/opinions/AG%20Opinion%2024-004.pdf
https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=50027
https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/articles.php?article=I-22
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights
https://www.aclunebraska.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/voting_rights_of_former_felons_-_june_2016.pdf
https://neappleseed.org/20782
https://supremecourt.nebraska.gov/courts/supreme-court/supreme-court-call/state-ex-rel-king-v-evnen
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023%3A13-39&version=ISV
