Kentucky: outgoing Governor Beshear restores voting rights to 100,000+ ex-felons

[greenforest32]

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Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/us/kentucky-governor-restores-voting-rights-to-thousands-of-felons.html

[Asian Nazi]

FF move

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Well, many will probably die anyways, given that the new governor will be promptly taking away people's health insurance, so no harm in giving them this right.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

FF move

[/]

#beshearforsenate

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

FF move

[pbrower2a]

Good. They have served their time.

The only legitimate reason for denying the right to vote for ex-felons is that they might vote for  races involving judges, DAs, and sheriffs. Ex-felons might prefer to vote for corruptible or incompetent people in such elected offices. It would be reasonable to deny ex-felons the right to vote for such offices while allowing them to vote for legislative and executive offices.  But comparatively few people vote for the enforcement and judicial offices anyway. Separate ballots would not be 'separate but equal'.   

[Miles]

FF!

[TDAS04]

Good news. 

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

#beshearforsenate

Too bad Rand Paul also in favor of this.

[Zache]

Well, this didn't last long.

[ElectionsGuy]

Well, this didn't last long.

Basically his reason was he wanted it passed through the legislature, not through an executive order. That sucks, as the Senate probably won't pass it.

[Badger]

Well, this didn't last long.

Basically his reason was he wanted it passed through the legislature, not through an executive order. That sucks, as the Senate probably won't pass it.

which Bevin is completely aware of, ergo.....

[Ebsy]

Bevin showing that he is as terrible as we thought.

[Miles]

Well, this didn't last long.

I watched the video in the link and I felt so sorry for Beshear. He was sitting behind Bevin at the inauguration and had to just listen as Bevin trashed his record.

[Maxwell]

Well, this didn't last long.

I watched the video in the link and I felt so sorry for Beshear. He was sitting behind Bevin at the inauguration and had to just listen as Bevin trashed his record.

Beshear is probably sitting easy - his son is gonna give Bevin a THRASHING in 2019.

[ElectionsGuy]

Well, this didn't last long.

I watched the video in the link and I felt so sorry for Beshear. He was sitting behind Bevin at the inauguration and had to just listen as Bevin trashed his record.

Beshear is probably sitting easy - his son is gonna give Bevin a THRASHING in 2019.

Wouldn't be so sure about that...

[Maxwell]

Well, this didn't last long.

I watched the video in the link and I felt so sorry for Beshear. He was sitting behind Bevin at the inauguration and had to just listen as Bevin trashed his record.

Beshear is probably sitting easy - his son is gonna give Bevin a THRASHING in 2019.

Yeah... and Edelen is going to give Paul a TRASHING in 2016. Oh wait....

Paul is a Senator, and as a result his % of the popular vote will remain pretty close to how the GOP does nationally. Plus,  I was never one of the people who thought Edelen was going to beat him.

Bevin is a Governor, which is a historically less partisan position, and has a history of being pretty incompetent. I suspect a non-Conway candidate could do pretty well against him in a decent Democratic year.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Is anyone really surprised by that? Bevin is such an insufferable dick that even his fellow Republicans had to bite their tongues and hold their noses in order to support him.

Also, why the hell did Beshear wait until his last days in office to do something like that? Didn't he really know what was going to happen?

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Is anyone really surprised by that? Bevin is such an insufferable dick that even his fellow Republicans had to bite their tongues and hold their noses in order to support him.

Also, why the hell did Beshear wait until his last days in office to do something like that? Didn't he really know what was going to happen?

No one knows exactly which executive orders from the old administration will be taken away by the new administration. You can predict based on what they say, but you don't truly know if they will actually do it. Beshear felt he still had to try and hope for the best, plus he might be the last democratic governor in the state for decades - at least he went out with a significant action, even if it was overturned.

I don't know why he didn't do this years ago, but he didn't do it shortly before the election as it might have simply emboldened Bevin in the final weeks or days of what democrats believed to be a winnable race.