Opinion ID: 1380470
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleged History of Racial Discrimination in New York's Disenfranchisement Laws

Text: Plaintiffs' amended complaint asserts that there is a history of race discrimination in New York State's disenfranchisement laws, that there is disparate application of New York State Election Law § 5-106(2), and that racial disparities exist in the disenfranchisement rates of Blacks and Latinos. Based on these allegations, plaintiffs contend that New York's constitutional provision mandating felon disenfranchisement was enacted with the intent to discriminate against persons on account of their race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs further argue that New York's felon disenfranchisement scheme violates equal protection guarantees because it distinguishes among felons in an unconstitutional manner by denying the right to vote only to those felons sentenced to incarceration or serving parole and not to those who have their prison sentence suspended or who are sentenced to probation. Specifically, plaintiffs' amended complaint makes the following relevant allegations. [4] New York has historically used a wide variety of mechanisms to discriminate against minority voters. Throughout the New York Constitutional Conventions addressing the right of suffrage, the framers made explicit statements of intent to discriminate against minority voters. Delegates created certain voting requirements that expressly applied only to racial minorities and crafted other provisions with seemingly neutral language that they knew would have a discriminatory effect on racial minorities. The disenfranchisement of felons was one aspect of this effort to deprive minorities of the right to vote. For example, plaintiffs' complaint alleges that in 1777, the framers initially excluded minorities by limiting suffrage to property holders and free men, but then as more Blacks became property holders and freemen, the legislature removed all property restrictions and instead expressly excluded Blacks from participating in the 1801 election of constitutional delegates. Furthermore, [a]t the second New York Constitutional Convention in 1821, the delegates met to address the issue of suffrage generally and Black suffrage in particular; the conversation sparked heated discussions, during which many delegates expressed the view that racial minorities were essentially unequipped to participate in civil society, and [s]ome delegates made explicit statements regarding Blacks' natural inferiority and unfitness for suffrage. J.A. 107, ¶ 46; see also Nathaniel H. Carter, William L. Stone & Marcus T.C. Gould, Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1821, at 198 (Albany, E. & E. Hosford 1821) (hereinafter  Debates of 1821 ). [5] For example, one delegate to the 1821 convention instructed his colleagues to [l]ook to your jails and penitentiaries. By whom are they filled? By the very race, whom it is now proposed to cloth [sic] with the power of deciding upon your political rights. Debates of 1821, supra, at 191. Another delegate urged his fellow delegates to [s]urvey your prisonsyour alms-housesyour bridewells and your penitentiaries, and what a darkening host meets your eye! More than one-third of the convicts and felons which those walls enclose, are of your sable population. Id. at 199. Another argued that the right of suffrage should be extended to White men only. Id. at 180. Based on their belief in Blacks' unfitness for democratic participation, the delegates designed new voting requirements aimed at stripping Black citizens of their previously held right to vote. Article II of the Constitution of 1821 incorporated the new discriminatory restrictions and contained new and unusually high property requirements that expressly applied only to men of color. N.Y. CONST. art. II, § 1 (repealed 1870). Only [a tiny percentage of the total] Black population met these requirements. Article II also provided new citizenship requirements that applied only to men of color. Id.  As one delegate to the 1821 Constitutional Convention explained, while the new property qualification did not directly restrict the right to vote to the `White' male, as some had desired, nevertheless, the same result was accomplished by inserting property qualifications... that were not required for the White man. N.Y. State Constitutional Convention Comm., Problems Relating to Home Rule and Local Government, 143 & n.13 (J.B. Lyon Co.1938). Article II further restricted the suffrage of minorities by permitting the state legislature to disenfranchise persons `who have been, or may be, convicted of infamous crimes.' N.Y. CONST. art. II, § 2. Through common law and legislative interpretation, `infamous crimes' came to mean traditional felonies. In 1826, an amendment to the New York Constitution abolished all property qualifications for White male suffrage, but left intact the unduly onerous property requirements for Black males. In 1846, at the third Constitutional Convention of New York, heated debates over suffrage again focused on Blacks. Advocating for the denial of equal suffrage, delegates continued to make explicit statements regarding Blacks' unfitness for suffrage, including a declaration that the proportion of `infamous crime' in the minority population was more than thirteen times that in the White population. J.A. 107, ¶ 51; see also William G. Bishop & William H. Attree, Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision of the Constitution of the State of New York, 1028-29 (Evening Atlas 1846) (hereinafter  Debates of 1846 ) (substantiating claim that delegates understood that Blacks were thirteen times more likely to commit infamous crimes than Whites). Felon disenfranchisement was further solidified in the Convention of 1846. As amended, the relevant constitutional provision stated: `Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, of larceny, or of any infamous crime ....' N.Y. CONST. art. II, § 2 (amended 1894) (emphasis added). When re-enacting the felon disenfranchisement provision and specifically including `any infamous crime' in the category of convictions that would disqualify voters, the delegates were acutely aware that these restrictions would have a discriminatory impact on Blacks. At the 1866-1867 fourth Constitutional Convention of New York, after engaging in heated debates, legislators rejected various proposals to expand suffrage and instead chose to maintain racially discriminatory property qualifications. New York's explicit racially discriminatory suffrage requirements were in place until voided by the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870. Under § 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment, 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. U.S. CONST. amend. XV, § 1. [T]wo years after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, an unprecedented committee convened and amended the disenfranchisement provision of the New York Constitution to require the state legislature, at its following session, to enact laws excluding persons convicted of infamous crimes from the right to vote. N.Y. CONST. art. II, § 2 (amended 1894). Theretofore, the enactment of such laws was permissive. [6] Unlike the allegations just described, plaintiffs' complaint includes no specific factual allegations of discriminatory intent that post-date 1874. For example, with regard to the present constitutional provision that remains in force today and that was enacted in 1894, plaintiffs simply state that [i]n 1894, at the Constitutional Convention following the [1874 New York constitutional amendment], the delegates permanently abandoned the permissive language and adopted a constitutional requirement that the legislature enact disenfranchisement laws. Plaintiffs further allege that this is the constitutional provision pursuant to which § 5-106 of the New York State Election Law was enacted and under which persons incarcerated and on parole for felony convictions are presently disenfranchised in New York State. As is apparent from this quoted language, plaintiffs' amended complaint does not allege any facts as to discriminatory intent behind the delegates' adoption of the 1894 constitutional provision, which is still in effect today. Nor do plaintiffs make any non-conclusory factual allegations of discriminatory intent with respect to the enactment of, and subsequent amendments to, New York's felon disenfranchisement statute.