Two Jacksonville women are continuing their lawsuit against the state of Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis over a 2019 law restricting some residents with felony convictions from voting after those rights had been restored by a state constitutional amendment.
Rosemary McCoy and Sheila Singleton are being represented in the caseMcCoy v. DeSantis by attorneys for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Thursday, SPLC lawyers gave oral arguments in the case to differentiate it from similar challenges to the law that have thus-far failed.
Nancy Abudu, interim strategic litigation director for the SPLC, argued that the law is unconstitutional for uniquely discriminating against her clients, both of whom are Black women.
Other lawsuits have alleged the 2019 law violates the 14th Amendment, which gives Americans due process rights. However, the McCoy suit alleges the law violates not just the 14th Amendment, but the 19th as well, which gave women the right to vote in America and prevents the denial of rights based on sex.
According to arguments from the McCoy team, because a quarter of Black women in Florida live below the poverty line, and nearly half of Black women with felony records are unemployed, the law’s requirement that felons pay back all fines and fees related to their conviction in order to regain their voting rights discriminates against Black women with felony records who are disproportionately unable to satisfy the legal requirement.
You can find the oral arguments online here.
Raymon Troncoso can be reached at rtroncoso@wjct.org, 904-358-6319 or on Twitter at @RayTroncoso.
