In trying to help felons, former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg may risk becoming a felon himself. What’s more, he is certainly acting in an objectively racist fashion.
Shame on him. The Biden campaign, which Bloomberg is trying to help, should both renounce and denounce Bloomberg’s efforts.
Bloomberg’s improper attempt to influence ex-convicts to vote for Biden came in response to a court decision joined by Supreme Court short-lister Barbara Lagoa. The decision, which was surely correct both as to law and to the intent of Florida voters, was that the Florida legislature acted within its powers in conditioning the resumption of felons’ voting rights on not only completing jail sentences but also making full restitution to victims and paying fines and court fees for their crimes.
Because of a 2018 referendum, hundreds of thousands of ex-cons can now vote in Florida who were ineligible to do so before. But for liberals, that expansion of voting privileges isn’t enough. Seemingly convinced that criminals naturally vote for Democrats, liberals are upset that the felons are required to make restitution — even if the restitution was part of their original sentence. Cleverly but absurdly, Democrats argued that even restitution payments amount to an unconstitutional “poll tax.” Lagoa, a former Florida Supreme Court justice, and five other judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, rightly shot down that argument.
That’s where Bloomberg enters the story. Saying specifically that he wanted to help Biden win Florida’s crucial electoral votes, the multibillionaire spent $16 million to pay the court fines and fees for nearly 32,000 black and Hispanic ex-cons.
But yes, you read that right — the money was only for blacks and Hispanics. No concern at all for white convicts. A memo from Bloomberg laid out the rationale: “We have identified a significant vote share that requires a nominal investment. The data shows that in Florida, Black voters are a unique universe unlike any other voting bloc, where the Democratic support rate tends to be 90%-95%.”
So much is wrong with this Bloomberg initiative that it’s hard to know where to begin. First, it may be illegal. Florida attorney general Ashley Moody has opened an investigation into whether Bloomberg is violating, perhaps flagrantly, two provisions each of both state and federal election law. For example, 52 U.S. Code § 10307(c) provides for penalties up to five years in prison for “offers to pay … either for registration to vote or for voting.”
Good — billionaire Bloomberg deserves to learn that you can’t just buy votes.
Yet on another level, what is most offensive isn’t the technical question of whether paying someone’s fines in order to enable them to register amounts to paying them illegally to register. What’s most offensive is the casual discrimination against white ex-cons entailed by the offer only to blacks and Hispanics. If the objection is that ex-convicts can’t afford to pay fines and fees, then why is it fair to pay the fines and fees only to people of favored ethnicities? A poor felon is a poor felon is a poor felon — whether white, black, or chartreuse.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s racial distinctions are insulting to blacks. He plays into every stereotype of black people comprising a mindless, monolithic voting bloc sure to vote Democratic if somebody just gives them a freebie. A Bloomberg adviser actually told the Washington Post that the payment of these convicts’ restitution “immediately activates tens of thousands of voters who are predisposed to vote for Joe Biden.”
Again, the assumed “predisposition” is based solely on ethnicity, not on any individual characteristics or viewpoints.
This is, in a word, vile. Black and Hispanic Americans aren’t sheep, and Bloomberg isn’t their shepherd. He’s the one who ought to make restitution for treating them with such condescension.
