Law Prof Calls For Voting Rights Reform

Speaking at Boston’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast on Monday, Bennett Boskey Professor of Law Lani Guinier called for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing all United States citizens, including convicted felons, the right to vote.

Guinier, who specializes in voting rights law and teaches at Harvard Law School (HLS), joined other prominent political and religious leaders from Massachusetts to commemorate King and to examine present challenges to equality. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., also addressed the crowd of nearly 2,000, offering strong remarks about President Bush and the 2004 election. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino also spoke at the event, which was held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

In her keynote address, Guinier condemned state laws that disenfranchise felons.

“Many Americans [who] have repaid their debt to society cannot vote,” she said. “It is the states who determine that to vote is a privilege and not a right.”

She also expressed concerns about progressive legal rulings of the Civil Rights Movement that stipulate equal protection under the law, but are not explicitly included in the text of the Constitution.

“The U.S. Supreme Court can give with one hand and take with the other,” she said.

To correct for these discrepancies, Guinier endorsed a constitutional amendment to provide a federally granted right to vote to all U.S. citizens. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., D.-Ill., is presently advocating such an amendment in the House of Representatives.

Guinier also noted that a disproportionate number of incarcerated Americans are black and Latino and that many felons who are denied the right to vote are nonviolent drug offenders. According to Guinier, criminal records currently prevent 13 percent of African-American men from voting.

Toward the end of her speech, Guinier maintained her optimism about the future, reminding the audience of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.

“He understood that the problem is not personal—it is structural,” she said. “We need to renew Dr. King’s vision.”

Senator Kerry, who spoke before Guinier, also praised the civil rights pioneer’s achievements, saying King “was not just an African-American leader; he was an American leader.”

But Kerry, who had commented little before that morning on his electoral loss to George W. Bush, also put forward some of his most vehement criticism of the president’s policies and of voter disenfranchisement in last November’s elections.

“Thousands of people were suppressed in the effort to vote,” he said after reminding the audience that he did not contest the election’s outcome. Many Democrats had urged Kerry to challenge his loss of Ohio, which ultimately cost him the presidential election, but the senator conceded to President Bush the morning after Election Day.

Kerry looked to King’s words to leave the crowd with a sense of encouragement.

“Martin Luther King reminded us that, yes, we have to accept ‘finite disappointment,’ and I know how to do that,” the senator said. “But he said we must…never give up on ‘infinite hope.’”

Kerry received a standing ovation.

After the event, Romney acknowledged the need for voting reform, but demurred at Guinier’s proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution.

“I think it’s helpful if elected officials and leaders…take action to make sure that citizens qualified to vote do vote and that people do not defraud the system,” he said. “But I would not sign on to Dr. Guinier’s suggestion to allow felons the right to vote.”

Guinier later told The Crimson that ratification of such an amendment was not paramount in her mind.

“It’s about sparking a debate, rather than making a particular change,” she said.

—Staff Writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.