Court Opinion

ID: 8408508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-02 16:43:56.004368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:47:35.268037
License: Public Domain

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I disagree with the majority’s analysis of both the Equal Protection and Voting Rights Act claims. Therefore, respectfully I dissent.

I. The Equal Protection Claim

The text of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly allows states to disenfranchise convicted felons, U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 2, and the Supreme Court unambiguously has determined that a state’s decision to permanently disenfranchise such citizens, in itself, is not an Equal Protection violation. Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24, 53-55, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 2670-71, 41 L.Ed.2d 551 (1974). Of course, a state may not intentionally use a facially-neutral measure to discriminate on the basis of race. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239-42, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 2047-48, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). This prohibition includes enacting a felon disenfranchisement provision in order to deprive one racial group of its right to participate in the political process. Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 233, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 1923, 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). But the State of Florida’s decision to bar felons from voting should not, in itself, cast suspicion on the motives of the state. The dispositive question in this case is whether the plaintiffs have alleged such facts that, if true, would be sufficient to establish intentional discrimination in Florida’s current disenfranchisement statute. In my view, the plaintiffs do not do so, and thus I would affirm the district court.

A. Background

The State of Florida’s decision to disenfranchise felons has a long history, beginning before the Civil War. In its 1838 Constitution, Florida first denied voting rights to those convicted of crimes. After the Civil War, Florida was required to change its Constitution for readmittance to the Union and subsequently held two con*1309stitutional conventions — one in 1865 and the other in 1868. The 1865 Constitution was inadequate because it did not extend the franchise to African Americans. The 1868 Constitutional Convention cured this defect. Delegates to both conventions decided to disenfranchise felons, a decision explicitly left to their discretion by the Fourteenth Amendment. One hundred years later in 1968, the State of Florida comprehensively revised its Constitution and again decided to deny felons the right to vote. Any felon, however, who has completed his sentence, including any orders of restitution, may apply for clemency to have his civil rights restored.1 Fla. Stat. § 940 (2003).

B. The Constitutional Revision Process

There is no question that the felon disenfranchisement provision was based on a non-racial rationale when it was first included in the Florida Constitution in 1838. At that time, the right to vote was only extended to white males. The plaintiffs allege that the decision to retain the disenfranchisement provision in the 1868 Constitution was motivated by a desire to minimize black voting power. Because it is not the role of this court to make factual determinations, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.2 We need not assume, however, that racial animus was the sole rationale. Indeed, as the plaintiffs’ expert acknowledges, at least five African American delegates to the 1868 Convention, of the sixteen African American delegates voting, supported this provision, presumably not for racially-discriminatory reasons.
In 1968, Florida again reexamined and revised its Constitution and enacted the current felon disenfranchisement provision. The 1968 Constitution was passed after the state had engaged in four stages of deliberation, including debate and revision by the Suffrage and Elections Committee, review by the Florida Constitutional Revision Committee, approval from both houses of the legislature and finally affirmation by a state-wide referendum.
There is no allegation in the complaint that the 1968 Constitutional Convention was infected with any racial animus, and the plaintiffs did not present any evidence that racial animus was présent in this process.3 As the majority opinion states, the *1310“summary judgment record reflects no evidence that racial considerations were discussed by the participants in the 1968 constitutional revision process when they passed the felon disenfranchisement provision.”
Florida’s revision of its constitution in 1968 distinguishes it from some other states with a history of racial discrimination. For instance, the State of Alabama enacted a felon disenfranchisement provision in 1901 with the specific intent of disenfranchising African American voters, and unlike Florida, Alabama never revisited the provision through the legislative process. Hunter, 471 U.S. at 233, 105 S.Ct. at 1922.

C. Equal Protection Analysis

A facially-neutral provision violates the Equal Protection Clause if adopted with the intent to discriminate against a racial group. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. at 239, 96 S.Ct. at 2047. Here, there is no allegation in the complaint that the 1968 Constitution was adopted with the intent to discriminate based on race.

1. Applying Hunter v. Underwood

In Hunter v. Underwood, the Supreme Court examined head-on the issue of felon disenfranchisement. 471 U.S. at 223, 105 S.Ct. at 1917. The Court determined that the Alabama Constitution violated the Equal Protection Clause because it was adopted in 1901 as a means of minimizing the political power of its African American population. Id. at 228-230, 105 S.Ct. at 1920-21. There, Alabama’s elected representatives neither altered the provision nor reenacted it in a political atmosphere free of racial bias. Rather, all of the amendments to the constitution were the result of judicial action. Id. at 233, 105 S.Ct. at 1922.
In Hunter, the Supreme Court, affirming the decision of this court, established an easily applied test for finding Equal Protection Clause violations in the context of felon disenfranchisement. Id. at 227-28, 105 S.Ct. at 1920 (1985). That test is as follows:
Presented with a neutral state law that produces disproportionate effects along racial lines, the Court of Appeals was correct in applying the approach of Arlington Heights to determine whether the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: “[Ojfficial action will not be held unconstitutional solely because it results in a racially disproportionate impact ... Proof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.” Once racial discrimination is shown to have been a “substantial” or “motivating” factor behind enactment of the law, the burden shifts to the law’s defenders to demonstrate that the law would have been enacted without this factor.
Id. (citation omitted).
Under this analysis, we apply a two-step test to determine whether a particular felon disenfranchisement provision violates the Equal Protection Clause. First, we examine whether there is any proof that racial discrimination was a substantial or motivating factor in the state’s decision to deny the right to vote to felons. Second, we determine whether the state can show that the provision would have been enacted without the racially discriminatory motive.
For the purposes of appeal, we assume, without deciding, that the plaintiffs have demonstrated that there was some racial animus in the 1868 Constitutional process. This, however, does not lead to the conclusion that race was a motivating factor in the political process which resulted in the 1968 Constitution, a hundred years later.
We next examine whether Florida would have chosen to disenfranchise felons if legislators did not have a discrimi*1311natory motive. In Hunter, this was a more complicated analysis because it required a counter-factual scenario: Given that Alabama only legislatively addressed this issue once, what would legislators have done if they did not have a discriminatory motive? 471 U.S. at 228-29, 105 S.Ct. at 1920. Here, we have the luxury of not having to delve into complex counter-factual scenarios because Florida simplified the analysis by returning to the issue in 1968. Florida’s 1968 Constitution permits us to determine whether the state would have chosen to disenfranchise felons if the impermissible motive was absent. The results are plain: There is no allegation of racial discrimination in 1968 and legislators decided to include a felon disenfranchisement provision in the revised constitution after consideration by two committees. This decision was then affirmed by both houses of the legislature and by popular referendum.
Thus, Florida’s provision is not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the standard adopted by the Supreme Court in Hunter. Florida’s reenactment of the felon disenfranchisement provision in the 1968 Constitution conclusively demonstrates that the state would enact this provision even without an impermissible motive. Reenactment is exactly the measure that we would require Florida to take if we did find an Equal Protection Clause violation, and thus the state has already cured the provision on its own initiative. The state, therefore, has met its burden as a matter of law by undertaking the precise measure the plaintiffs are seeking.4
Moreover, Florida’s provision is arguably not even subject to this type of intent analysis because the felon disenfranchisement provision did not create a disparate impact along racial lines in 1968. Accepting the plaintiffs’ best estimates for 1968 as true, the felon disenfranchisement provision denied voting rights to far more whites than African Americans and decreased the percentage of African-American voters state-wide by less than one quarter of one percent.5 Although proportionately more African American were affected, the percentage of eligible African Americans voters in the voting age public in 1968 dropped only from 12.53% to 12.32% due to felony convictions. The majority focuses on the present racially disparate impact of the felon disenfranchisement provision, but this disparate impact was not present in 1968.

2. The Majority’s Standard

The majority establishes a different standard than the one announced in Hunter. Instead of examining whether legislators would have enacted the felon disenfranchisement provision if they did not have an impermissible motive, the majority remands the case to the district court and requires that the state prove that it “knowingly and deliberatively reenacted it for a non-discriminatory reason.” This standard is beyond what is required by Hunter because it invalidates facially-neutral provisions enacted by legislators who are not alleged to have discriminatory motives.6 In effect, the majority requires that the *1312State of Florida show that it considered the alleged racial discrimination in the 1868 Constitution and that it “knowingly and deliberately” decided to re-enact the provision for other reasons in 1968. The present law does not require this level of proof. Florida’s current provision is constitutional because — as the majority agrees — there is no evidence of any racial bias in the re-enactment. See also Cotton v. Fordice, 157 F.3d 388 (5th Cir.1998) (holding that a felon disenfranchisement provision did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because the current provision was adopted without discriminatory intent.).

a. Justifying Heightened Review

The majority argues that Florida’s 1968 facially-neutral provision, passed without any evidence of racial discrimination, should be deemed a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. To support its position, the majority relies on United States v. Fordice, 505 U.S. 717, 112 S.Ct. 2727, 120 L.Ed.2d 575 (1992), which involved a challenge to Mississippi’s system of higher education. Fordice, however, involved an extreme case of recent state discrimination. There, Mississippi actively resisted removing the segregated system of education in the 1960s, failed to fund even limited educational reform in 1969, and was sued by the United States and private plaintiffs in 1975 for failing to comply with the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 722-25, 112 S.Ct. at 2732-34. The issue in Fordice was whether the state’s facially-neutral education system, which was passed only after the state was required to integrate its schools by court order, was valid under the Equal Protection Clause if the system maintained the racially disparate impact that de jure segregation had created. The Supreme Court found that Mississippi’s actions were not consistent with the Equal Protection Clause if Mississippi made no effort to remove the discriminatory effects of de jure segregation. The present case and Fordice are simply not analogous.
First, Florida’s 1968 provision did not continue the adverse disparate impact of earlier de jure measures, which makes the present case entirely different than the situation in Fordice. At the time the Mississippi legislature adopted its education system, the system of higher education was almost completely racially segregated. Id. at 722, 112 S.Ct. at 2732. In Fordice, therefore, the Supreme Court was concerned that Mississippi was attempting to perpetuate its racially segregated education system, established in a time of de jure segregation, through a facially-neutral provision. In contrast, when Florida adopted its felon-disenfranchisement provision in 1968, the racial effects of the provision were minor. In 1968, Florida legislators and voters were not attempting to extend the effects of de jure discrimination with a facially-neutral provision because there was no adverse impact to extend by passing the felon disenfranchisement provision.7 Florida’s provision simply did not *1313maintain a pattern of discrimination the way Mississippi’s provision did. Consequently, the heightened review used in Fordice is not appropriate here.
Second, the current Florida provision was passed one hundred years after allegedly intentional discrimination occurred, whereas Mississippi’s provision was passed shortly after the end of de jure segregation in education. Needless to say, the Florida legislators who passed the 1868 Constitution and the 1968 Constitution were not the same people. In Fordice, however, the legislators, who refused to desegregate the Mississippi schools without a court order in the 1960s, most likely overlapped significantly with the legislators who passed the facially-neutral education system in the 1970s. Given the proximity in time between Mississippi’s intentional discrimination and the facially-neutral provision in education, we should have a healthy skepticism that the facially-neutral provision was indeed neutral. Certainly, the Mississippi legislators who voted for the facially-neutral provision understood the history of racial segregation in education and the likely racial effects of their new education system. But this healthy skepticism should not be applied here, because it is not reasonable to assign any impermissible motives held by the 1868 Florida legislators to the 1968 legislators who voted for the present felon disenfranchisement provision.
Third, Florida has a valid public policy reason for disenfranchising felons, where Mississippi did not have a sound justification for its education policies. The majority quotes Justice Thomas’s concurrence in Fordice, but Justice Thomas specifically states that this heightened review is only applicable when there is no sound public policy justification for the state law, stating: “A challenged policy does not survive under the standard we announce today if it began during the prior de jure era, produces adverse impacts, and persists without sound educational justification.” Fordice, 505 U.S. at 746, 112 S.Ct. at 2745 (emphasis added). Where Mississippi schools did not have valid educational justification for maintaining segregated schools, Florida has a legitimate reason for denying the vote to felons.
Finally, we note that this circuit has been reluctant to extend the education line of cases to other areas. As this court stated in Burton v. City of Belle Glade, school desegregation jurisprudence is unique and thus difficult to apply in other contexts. 178 F.3d 1175, 1190 (1999) (stating “In the first place, Appellants can point to no court that has ever applied Fordice outside of the education setting. Indeed, given the unique nature of school desegregation, we hesitate to extend Ford-ice to a property annexation case.”) Moreover, as argued earlier, there is specific precedent from this court and the Supreme Court dealing with felon disenfranchisement. See Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 41 L.Ed.2d 551 (1974), Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), Beacham v. Braterman, 300 F.Supp. 182, 183 (1969), aff'd 396 U.S. 12, 90 S.Ct. 153, 24 L.Ed.2d 11 (1969) (finding by a three judge panel that Florida’s decision to disenfranchise felons was not a violation of the plaintiffs equal protection or due process rights). Because these cases establish clear standards by which to judge state action, we are bound by precedent *1314and need not go into other areas of possibly analogous law.

b. Sufficient Deliberation

The majority argues that Florida has not yet demonstrated that it has “broken the causal chain” between the 1868 Constitution and the current provision. It maintains that the 1968 constitutional revisions to this provision were not sufficient because legislators did not adequately deliberate over this issue. But the record belies this conclusion: The provision was subject to significant deliberation.
The 1968 Constitution’s felon disenfranchisement rule was first actively considered by the Suffrage and Elections Committee. The record reflects that the committee discussed the provision, debated proposed changes, and ultimately decided to adopt the present provision, which is different from the 1868 provision. The committee also considered an alternative motion that would have eliminated the disenfranchisement rule to felons released from incarceration.8 After discussion, the alternative motion failed. The new constitution was then accepted by the full committee, approved by both legislative houses, and affirmed by a state-wide referendum-all without any allegation of racial bias. Although reasonable people may disagree over the wisdom of the policy choice, the provision certainly received sufficient deliberation.

S. Wisdom of the Policy

Several of the amici argue that, as a policy matter, felons should be enfranchised, particularly those who have served their sentences and presumably paid their debt to society. But this is a policy decision that the United States Constitution expressly gives to the state governments, not the federal courts. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 2. Florida already has legislatively reexamined this provision since 1868 and affirmed its decision to deny felons the vote. Federal courts cannot question the wisdom of this choice.
For the above reasons I would affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment on this count.

II. The Voting Rights Act Claim

I also respectfully dissent from the majority’s remand of the Voting Rights Act claim. In my view, the Voting Rights Act does not apply to felon disenfranchisement provisions. The majority’s interpretation of the scope of the Voting Rights Act creates grave questions as to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and is contrary to Congress’s statements regarding its coverage.

A. The Scope of the Voting Rights Act

Florida’s discretion to deny the vote to convicted felons is fixed by the text of § 2 of Fourteenth Amendment, which states:
[WJhen the right to vote...is denied to any of the male inhabitants...or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 2 (emphasis added).9 Interpreting the Voting Rights *1315Act to deny a state this discretion, as the majority does, creates a constitutional problem because such an interpretation allows a congressional statute to trump the text of the Constitution.
It is a long-standing rule of statutory interpretation that federal courts should not construe a statute to create a constitutional question unless there is a clear statement from Congress endorsing this understanding. As the Supreme Court stated in DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Trades Council:
[Wjhere an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute would raise serious constitutional problems, the Court will construe the statute to avoid such problems unless such construction is plainly contrary to the intent of Congress. This cardinal principle has its roots in Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion for the Court in Murray v. The Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118, 2 L.Ed. 208 (1804), and has for so long been applied by this Court that it is beyond debate.... This approach not only reflects the prudential concern that constitutional issues not be needlessly confronted, but also recognizes that Congress, like this Court, is bound by and swears an oath to uphold the Constitution. The courts will therefore not lightly assume that Congress intended to infringe constitutionally protected liberties or usurp power constitutionally forbidden it.
485 U.S. 568, 575, 108 S.Ct. 1392, 1397-98, 99 L.Ed.2d 645 (1988). Thus when we analyze the scope of the Voting Rights Act, we should first address whether one interpretation presents grave constitutional questions where other interpretations would not, and then examine whether the latter interpretation is clearly contrary to Congressional intent. Id.
Here, the majority’s interpretation creates a serious constitutional question by interpreting the Voting Rights Act to trump the text of the Fourteenth Amendment.10 Congress undoubtedly has the constitutional authority to prohibit many measures that are not explicitly prohibited in the Fourteenth Amendment, but this enforcement power arguably does not extend to prohibiting constitutionally protected practices. This is not to say that a state’s felon disenfranchisement provisions can never be challenged. As pointed out above and as the decision in Hunter confirmed, states cannot use felon disenfranchisement provisions to discriminate intentionally on the basis of race. 471 U.S. at 233, 105 S.Ct. at 1923. Thus, the plaintiffs have a remedy if the state’s provision violates the Equal Protection Clause. Id. It is a different matter, however, when a statute limits a state’s delegated power in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.
The majority opinion cites Hunter for the proposition that the felon disenfranchisement provision can be challenged un*1316der the Voting Rights Act. But in Hunter, the Supreme Court dealt exclusively with the Equal Protection Clause and did not discuss the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court has never given any indication that the felon disenfranchisement provision can be challenged under the Voting Rights Act. To the contrary, in Richardson v. Ramirez, the Supreme Court explained that felon disenfranchisement provisions are different from other state franchise rules because they are permitted by the Fourteenth Amendment’s express language. 418 U.S. 24, 54, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 2671, 41 L.Ed.2d 551(1974).
For the majority’s analysis of the Voting Rights Act to be correct, we must look for a clear statement from Congress that it intended such a constitutionally-questionable result. DeBartolo, 485 U.S. at 575, 108 S.Ct. at 1397. Instead of a clear statement from Congress that the majority’s interpretation was intended, the legislative history indicates just the opposite-that Congress did not intend the Voting Rights Act to apply to felon disenfranchisement provisions.11

1. Congressional Statements in 1965

The scope of the Voting Rights Act is limited. Congress first passed the act in 1965 to prevent states from discriminating against minorities in voting.12 The act was intended to cover voting tests and other practices, such as districts designed by states to minimize minority voting. See Burton v. City of Belle Glade, 178 F.3d 1175, 1196 (11th Cir.1999). The Senate and House reports make clear, however, that Congress did not intend the Voting Rights Act to cover felon disenfranchisement provisions. The reports indicate that tests for literacy or good moral character should be scrutinized, but felon disenfranchisement provisions should not. S. Rep. 89-162, 1965 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2508, 2562. The only place where legislators addressed felon disenfranchisement provisions was with regard to Section 4, where the Senate Report reflects that legislators intended to exempt the voting restrictions on felons from the statute’s coverage, stating:
The third type of test or device covered is any requirement of good moral character. This definition would not result *1317in the proscription of the frequent requirement of States and political subdivisions that an applicant for voting or registration for voting be free of conviction of a felony or mental disability.

Id.

Likewise the House Report also states that the Voting Rights Act was not designed to prohibit felon disenfranchisement:
This subsection does not proscribe a requirement of a State or any political subdivision of a State that an applicant for voting or registration for voting be free of conviction of a felony or mental disability.
1965 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2437, 2457. These reports indicate that neither house of Congress intended to include felon disenfranchisement provisions within the statute’s scope. These are the only references to felon disenfranchisement made in reports to the 1965 act.
Furthermore, this court’s predecessor previously decided that the 1965 act did not cover a state’s decision to exclude felons from voting. In United States v. Ward, the former Fifth Circuit held that the Voting Rights Act prohibited Louisiana from imposing any literacy test or other qualification on voter registration, but found that the act did not extend to felon disenfranchisement rules. 352 F.2d 329, 332 (5th Cir.1965).13 There, the court issued an order enjoining the state from applying the voting tests, but explicitly exempted felony convictions from the order. The court ordered that the state cease
... requiring any applicant for voter registration in Madison Parish, as a precondition to such registration, to take or pass any test of literacy, knowledge, or understanding or to comply with any other test or device as defined in Section 4(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Public Law 89-110, 79 Stat. 438-439, i.e., any requirement (including the “good character” requirement specified in Article VIII, Section 1(c) of the Louisiana Constitution and Title 18, Section 32, of the Louisiana Code, except to the extent that these provisions permit disqualification for conviction of a felony).
Id. at 332 (emphasis added).

2. Congressional Statements in 1982

Congress most recently amended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980), in an attempt to clarify the standard for finding statutory violations. In revising the statute, Congress intended to depart from the intent-based standard of the Supreme Court’s Equal Protection jurisprudence and establish an effects-based standard. S. Rep. 97-417, 15-17, 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. 177, 192-94 (1982). After the 1982 amendment, a state practice could survive Equal Protection Clause scrutiny but fail Voting Rights Act scrutiny.
Although the 1982 amendments were significant in terms of the legal test applied to practices covered by the act, they are not relevant here because the challenged provision remains outside the scope of the Voting Rights Act. Neither the plain text nor the legislative history plainly declares Congress’s intent to extend the Voting Rights Act to felon disenfranchisement provisions.14 The Senate Report, which goes into great detail on legislative intent, made no mention of felon disenfran*1318chisement provisions.15 Although it is conceivable that certain legislators may have wanted the Voting Rights Act to encompass felon disenfranchisement provisions, we should not assume that Congress intended to produce a statute contrary to the plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment without a clear statement. DeBartolo, 485 U.S. at 575,108 S.Ct. at 1397.
In short, I believe the majority adopts a constitutionally questionable interpretation of the Voting Rights Act — one in which the statute prohibits a practice that the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly permits. As a matter of statutory construction, we should avoid such an interpretation. Moreover the case for rejecting the majority’s interpretation is particularly strong here, where Congress has expressed its intent to exclude felon disenfranchisement measures from Voting Rights Act scrutiny.16
*1319Accordingly, I dissent from the decision to remand and would affirm the district court on this count also.

. There are conditions to the restoration of civil rights, including conviction of fewer than three violent crimes.

. Nonetheless, I question the majority’s description of the record. In particular, the majority states that one white delegate to the 1868 Constitutional Convention stated several years later that he had helped prevent the state from being "niggarized." A white politician running for office in 1872 made this despicable comment in reference to the entire 1868 Constitution. Although this is evidence of an unfortunate and indefensible racial animus in nineteenth-century Florida politics, there is no evidence that the comment was in reference to the felon disenfranchisement provision. It is far more likely that the comment referenced other provisions in the 1868 Constitution, such as the voter apportionment system.
The plaintiffs' expert states voter apportionment and the appointment (rather than election) of many political posts were the most significant and well-known issues of 1868 Constitutional Convention, while felon disenfranchisement was a relatively minor issue. In fact, the plaintiffs’ expert acknowledged that the historical record is mixed on the felon disenfranchisement provision. The 1868 Constitution's felon suffrage provisions garnered the support of several of the Radical Republicans, including four African American delegates who consistently voted with the Radical Republicans. Doc. 122 at 875.

.The plaintiffs stipulate that there is no evidence that legislators were concerned with or considered the consequences of the policy along racial lines.

.The majority states that Florida must prove that it would have enacted this provision in 1868 without a discriminatory motive to withstand summary judgment. This would be the case if the 1868 provision was being challenged. In the current litigation, however, the plaintiffs are challenging the 1968 provision and they have presented no evidence that this provision, passed one hundred years later, was motivated by discriminatory intent.

. Doc. 163-Addendum. The plaintiffs’ best estimates show that 44,562 white voters and 16,150 African American voters were disenfranchised in 1968 due to a felony conviction.

. The majority cites Hunter for the proposition that “proof of discriminatory intent behind a specific policy in the past creates an inference that the impermissible purpose continues into the present despite the passage of time and even, in some instances, intervening *1312changes to the policy.” (emphasis added). In Hunter, the Supreme Court found that revision to the state provision by state courts, which severed “some of the more blatantly discriminatory’’ portions of the law, did not purge the provision of its legislative intent. 471 U.S. at 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 1916. However, the Supreme Court did not hold that intervening legislative changes to the policy were legally insufficient to remove an earlier discriminatory intent. Because the present case deals with legislative changes, rather than judicial changes, to the felon disenfranchisement policy, Hunter should not be read to support the proposition that an impermissible motive in Florida's 1868 Constitution continues to the present in spite of legislative changes made in the 1968 Constitution.

. The majority repeatedly refers to the current effects of the felon disenfranchisement provision — some forty years after it was passed-but this is simply not relevant for understanding the motives of legislators in 1968. *1313Unlike in Fordice, the racially disparate effect of Florida's voting provision was not present when the provision was passed. In contrast to school desegregation where the racially disparate impact was at its height in the 1950s and 1960s and has decreased since, the felon disenfranchisement rule had very little racially disparate impact in the 1960s and only developed such an effect many years later.

. The minutes of the committee meeting record the following motion was considered:
"Mr. Goodrich offered the following substitute motion to Mr. Pettigrew’s motion: Delete Section 4 and insert: 'The Legislature may by law exclude persons from voting because of mental incompetence or commitment to a jail or penal institution.’ After discussion, Mr. Goodrich’s motion failed for lack of a second.”
Doc.App. 10 at 983.

. The full text of Section 2 states:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole *1315number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

. If this court chooses to adopt an interpretation that confronts the constitutional question, then we must address directly whether Congress has the power to trump constitutional provisions that are not applied in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

. The Second Circuit reinstated a district court opinion that reached the same conclusion on the scope of the Voting Rights Act. In Baker v. Pataki, an en banc panel was evenly split on the issue. 85 F.3d 919 (2d Cir.1996). In an opinion urging the court to affirm, Judge Mahoney, joined by four other judges, argued that the Voting Rights Act was of questionable constitutionality if it applied to felon disenfranchisement provisions. Id. at 929-32. The judges looked for a clear statement from Congress supporting this interpretation and found evidence of Congressional support to be "manifestly lacking.” Id. at 930.
Only the Ninth Circuit has found a felon disenfranchisement provision to be a statutory violation. Farrakhan v. Washington, 338 F.3d 1009 (9th Cir.2003). There, the plaintiffs brought a Voting Rights Act challenge to the State of Washington’s felon disenfranchisement provision, claiming that racism in the criminal justice system interacted with the state's suffrage laws to deny equal voting opportunities to minorities. Id. at 1020. The Ninth Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment, but did not specifically address the constitutionality of its interpretation. Logically, that court must have found that the statute covered the challenged provision and that Congress had the constitutional authority to regulate felon disenfranchisement provisions to reach its holding. Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit did not provide any reasoning for its finding, and thus that court’s decision, which is only persuasive authority in our circuit, should not inform our analysis.

. Section 1973 of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 stated:
No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.

. In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), this court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to October 1, 1981.

. The current text, as amended in 1982, states:
(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which re-*1318suits in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, that nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
Section 1973b(f)(2) states that:
No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote because he is a member of a language minority group.

. In addition, there are currently two bills circulating in Congress that aim to limit a state's discretion to disenfranchise felons and include findings that felon disenfranchisement provisions create a disparate racial impact. Civil Participation and Rehabilitation Act, H.R. 259, 108th Cong. § 2(g) (2003), Ex-Offenders Voting Rights Act of 2003, H.R. 1433, 108th Cong. § 2(a)(ll) (2003). Although not dispositive in interpreting the scope of the Voting Rights Act, it is unclear why these bills have been proposed if Congress has the clear understanding that the Voting Rights Act currently covers these cases.

. Even if we assume that the Voting Rights Act applies to Florida’s provision, the plaintiffs still must demonstrate that specific racial biases in society cause minorities to be convicted of felonies at a higher rate than whites. Cf. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 47, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2764, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1987) (stating that the Voting Rights Act requires that electoral practices interact with social or historical conditions to cause racial inequality in the political process). Without such an initial showing, the plaintiffs do not allege a sufficiently specific nexus between racial discrimination and the felon disenfranchisement rule.
The majority opinion discusses a long list of possible areas of discrimination, but here we are concerned only with how the state discriminates against similarly situated persons who have committed felonies. The record includes some evidence that there is a statistical difference in the rate of felony convictions along racial lines, even accounting for other factors. This finding is disturbing, but the statistical analysis cannot speak to causation. The plaintiffs' statistical findings only demonstrate correlations between different variables and do not purport to establish causal relationships between these variables. Causation analysis must come from sources external to the statistical analysis. Thus by definition, the plaintiffs cannot establish a causal nexus between variables by statistical results alone.
The majority emphasizes that Voting Rights Act requires a “totality of the circumstances’’ analysis to evaluate whether racial discrimi*1319nation, outside of the voting context, causes racial discrimination in the political process. I agree that this is the correct standard. I respectfully disagree with the majority, however, over what evidence is necessary to demonstrate that the alleged disparate impact in voting is caused by discrimination outside of the political process.