Desmond Meade & Neil Volz Discuss Voting Rights

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And now we bring you two Florida men who are leading the fight to restore voting rights to more than one-and-a-half million citizens of their state. They are convicted felons. Now, Desmond Meade and Neil Volz are activists behind Amendment Four but as former convicts themselves, they can’t vote on their own initiative. Meade who served time for drug and weapons charges is now a practicing attorney. Volz, a former Republican political operative was sentenced in a lobbying scandal. And together, they’re galvanizing broad support for a simple premise. Once you’ve paid your debt to society, you should be able to become a full citizen again and that means being able to vote, too. Our Alicia Menendez talked to them in Miami.

ALICIA MENENDEZ, CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you both so much for being here.

NEIL VOLZ, POLITICAL DIRECTOR, FLORIDA RIGHTS RESTORATION COALITION: Thanks for having us.

DESMOND MEADE, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA RIGHTS RESTORATION COALITION: Thank you.

MENENDEZ: Desmond, can you tell me what Amendment Four is?

MEADE: Yes. Amendment Four is a Constitutional Amendment that will restore the eligibility to vote for individuals who have previously been convicted of a felony offense. The requirement is that they must complete all portions of their sentence as ordered by a judge. And once that occurs, then they’re able to have the eligibility to vote. The Amendment, however, would not apply to individuals who were convicted of murder or individuals who were convicted of felony sexual offenses.

MENENDEZ: So who qualifies as a felon?

MEADE: Anyone in the State of Florida who’s been convicted of a felony offense and, you know, one of the myths that we try to debunk early on is that a lot of people when they think of felons, they think of the worst things in the world. But it is so easy in Florida to get a felony conviction. You know something as simple as burning a tire in public or driving with a suspended license or even trespassing on a construction site or releasing helium-filled balloons, those things can allow someone to get a felony conviction. And if they live in Florida that they will lose their right for life.

VOLZ: And I think one of the things, if I could just add to that, you see that play out in the court system because, in Florida, 75 percent of the people who are sentenced with felony convictions actually aren’t sentenced to prison. So people are in our communities, in our church pews, sometimes are pastors, are bosses, they’re working with us, they’re at school. And so this really is something that impacts everybody.

MENENDEZ: Why approach this as a Constitutional Amendment?

VOLZ: We approach this as a Constitutional Amendment because elected officials and politicians have been talking about changing this for years and years and years. And the truth is, this came out of the pain of people who are dealing with the system that’s wildly broken, a system that has us, one of four states that permanently bars people from being full citizens in their community in this way. And we are just trying to do what other states like Texas and Georgia [14:40:00] have already done and that is basically to adhere to a principle that when a debt is paid, it’s paid. And when you’ve paid your debt, then you’re able to become a full citizen in your community again.

MENENDEZ: It is often portrayed as an issue that affects almost exclusively communities of color when in fact that is not the reality.

VOLZ: No, that’s exactly right. And we appreciate that question because while the African-American community is disproportionately impacted, there is a long history that got us to this point. The truth is this cancer that started 150 years ago after the Civil War has grown to a place where it impacts the entire state. Every community’s impacted by this. And two-thirds of those who are formerly convicted, people like myself, are not African-American. They look more like me than they do Desmond. And so it’s important for people to understand that this is an everybody issue and that there’s impact in all communities.

MENENDEZ: What is the pushback you most often get?

VOLZ: For me, what I get sometimes is a reaction that somebody thinks that this has something to do with crime. You know. Hey, if you did the crime, you should do the time. And what I found is that, you know, I’m somebody who’s looking for grace, right? So I need to give that person grace and ask them, well, why do you think that? Why is that reaction when you hear about this issue? And what I have seen over and over and over again, what we have seen over and over again is when somebody gets the chance to actually sit down and think about this issue and how broken our system is and how all the data shows that if we take this step, we can help create safer communities and stronger families and change lives in the process, then it’s a true win- win. You start to see the kind of support that we are seeing right now in the polls.

MENENDEZ: How does this make communities safer?

VOLZ: So this makes communities safer because all the data shows, the data on the right, the data on the left, data from universities, from all sides show that the quicker people are able to reintegrate into their communities, the less likely they are to re-offend. And when you start doing the numbers and you start thinking about the tax dollars saved and the less crime that’s going to happen because of it, this actually impacts every community in Florida. And it’s a real win-win when you start thinking about the practical impacts that this can have.

MENENDEZ: So this issue is deeply personal for both of you. Can you tell us a little bit about your story?

MEADE: So all of my charges came because of my addiction to drugs. And so I have a lot of possession of drug charges, drug possession charges. And eventually, a gun was found in my home and I was also charged with that. That was the last charge I received I think in 2001. And I was sentenced to prison. Initially, 15-year sentence but it was reduced to three and I was released in 2004. I remember being a homeless person and walking the streets. Not much hope, you know. And eventually, my steps took me to railroad tracks and I stood there waiting on a train to come so I can jump in front of it. I was recently released from prison. I was unemployed. I was addicted to drugs. Didn’t have anything but my clothes that I was wearing. But the train didn’t come that day and I ended up crossing those tracks and I checked myself into drug treatment. From there, I moved into a homeless shelter, not too far from here, Chapman Partnership. And while there, I decided to enroll in school. And I enrolled at Miami-Dade College and things went well for me there academically and eventually, I was accepted into Law School at Florida International University College of Law. And in May of 2014, I eventually graduated with a Jurist Doctor Degree.

VOLZ: I got my felony conviction 12 years ago and I was working in Washington at the time. I spent years up there working in Republican politics and I was chief of staff for a member of Congress and then I went and worked as a lobbyist for a law firm. And I got selfish and greedy and I started to make some stupid decisions and I crossed lines that I shouldn’t have crossed and got in trouble, conspiracy charge on a services fraud was the count.

MENENDEZ: That became a big national story.

VOLZ: Yes, it was a political scandal and I played a role in that. And I had to deal with the shame and the guilt and of, you know, my own decisions and their impact on me, those people around me, my loved ones, my family. And that really put me in a tailspin. And ultimately, over some time I ended up moving to Florida and that’s where I started to begin to put my life back together again.

MENENDEZ: If you win on election day, what will that mean more broadly for criminal justice reform?

VOLZ: Well, when I think about election day, I think about the families who are involved. I think about the individuals, the moms, the dads, the aunts, the uncles, the people who have been, you know, working with us and a part of this movement for years. And when I think about election day, I think about people getting their voice back and people having a seat at the table. And so we are not a hundred percent sure, you know, kind of next steps. We are really focused right now on this part of the process. But I think about it as a movement because this has taken years and it is people who have led the charge. And you know what? On election day, if this passes, they’re going to have their voices heard in their communities and that’s going to be an election of school board or the ability to have a say over something that impacts how their mom or dad is, you know, treated at the — by the hospital or what have you. It has a lot of different impacts and there will be plenty of time for us to really dig in all those things. But for me, it’s like kind of, man, people are getting their voice back.

MEADE: I think it’s something even deeper than criminal justice reform what we are touching on. When you talk about — what I get most excited about is the way how we got here, right? And you’re going to keep hearing me saying it over and over again. People from all walks of life, I think that we have something special here because with issue as controversial as voting and dealing with felons in the State of Florida, for us to get to where we’re at right now, polling at super majority with no opposition, right? And being supported from organizations, from Koch industries all the way to the ACLU, Christian Coalition all the way to the AME churches, the evangelicals, Latino evangelicals, and Florida Tax Watch, to have such a broad spectrum of support above the ground and on the ground says something special about this. What it says is that people can come together along the lines of humanity and shed their partisan differences. They can shed their racial anxieties and come together as human beings and make something special happen. That right there to me means that we are — we could be a bright spot in this country. In times of these when there’s so much division among people along the lines of race and along the lines of partisan politics, to see people come together in the State of Florida around the issue like this and you have unity from all walks of life, that I think can be an example of how we can move forward in this country.

MENENDEZ: There are people who will look at the two of you and say your stories are anomalous. Not everyone becomes a JD after going to prison. What do you say to that?

MEADE: I mean it’s true but, you know, I think that you know, when you look across this country, there are so many amazing stories of returning citizens who have defied the odds and become — you know, you have Shon Hopwood who teaches law at Georgetown. You have Tarra Simmons in the State of Washington. You have Bruce Riley in Louisiana. You know? And so, so many others that have done amazing, amazing work in the community and have turned their life around. Now, what I do say is that we shouldn’t have to go that far in order to earn eligibility to vote back. I think that once you have served your time as ordered by a judge, you know, and that’s very important because when you talk about that exchange there or that interaction and that experience, that, you know, I’m in a courtroom and you have a judge and I have a prosecutor that knows everything about me, that knows everything about that case, right? And they made the determination based on the totality of circumstances that I should serve a certain amount of time. And once I serve that, my debt is paid. These are experts that we put in place to make these determinations and they made that determination. And once I serve that time, then I should be able to move on with my life.

MENENDEZ: As Republican, how do you feel about Republicans’ general response to this issue?

VOLZ: Yes, you know what, I found that people from all political persuasions are opened to listening to what it is that Amendment Four is all about. And so we see support, majority supports, superb majority support from Republicans, Independents, Democrats.

MENENDEZ: I don’t mean voters though. I mean legislators, governors.

VOLZ: Yes, the truth is we’re very focused on people, you know. This movement matters to us and we were collecting petitions and knocking on doors and talking to people long before the names of those who are running were even something to think about. And so for us, it’s always been about talking to people. And that is going into — you know, I was at Bike Fest a couple of days ago and, my goodness, the support was overwhelming. So you have people ahead of the politicians when it comes to Amendment Four.

MEADE: We never went to politicians with this because it’s been in the hands — it was in their hands far too long and the beauty about this is that we did this in spite of politicians. We did this in spite of partisan politics and we like to keep it that way.

MENENDEZ: Where are your politics?

MEADE: Listen, we are fighting just as hard, if not harder, for that person that wished they could have voted for Donald Trump as that person that wanted to vote for Barack Obama. We don’t care how a person votes. What we care about is that once you’ve completely served all portions of your sentence that you’d be given an opportunity to have your voice heard. That’s what matters most.

MENENDEZ: You say that, though, understanding that there is a perception that most of the people who you will then make eligible to vote will want to vote for Democrats, rather than voting for Republicans.

MEADE: That’s a great question because it deals with a narrative, a false narrative, that have been perpetuated for quite some time.

MENENDEZ: By who?

MEADE: By everyone. By everyone, whether they’re Democrats, whether they’re Republicans. As a matter of fact, maybe I’m to blame, as well. Because what happens is that we have created an illusion that the people whose rights are restored are going to be mainly African-American and people coming out of prison. The reality is that in Florida, African-Americans only account for a third of the people who have lost their right to vote. And when you talk about people who are in prison, we have to understand that Florida convicts over 170,000 people each year. Out of that 170,000, less than 25 percent are even sentenced to prison. So the overwhelming majority of people who we’re talking about, who are impacted are people who, number one, do not look like me. And number two, are not coming out of prison. And so that just destroys that narrative or that myth that was built on this thing that, well, African-Americans always get in trouble. They’re the majority of the people in prison. This is for people out of prison so therefore African-Americans are going to vote Democrat, you know. And that could be the furthest from the truth.

VOLZ: Yes. And the truth is that is how the storyline goes. How we get to this false narrative is based on this idea that the majority of folks impacted are African-American and then you look at voting numbers and then you make the leap to a partisan conclusion. I’ve been in so many meetings with people and I love this moment when folks, 10 or 12 of us, returning citizens sitting around and somebody asks, “Oh, hey, you’re Republican or Democrat?” We are not allowed to sit in those seats in this state. We don’t get to be a Republican or Democrat because we’re precluded from the process. And so the idea that somebody wants to project on to us, who we are, and how we’re going to make decisions in the future just doesn’t make any sense and it really isn’t backed up by any data on any side. And so we are just focused on whether people can vote and not how they can vote because it’s the right thing to do.

MENENDEZ: What has your experience taught both of you about the power of forgiveness and second chances?

MEADE: This journey, this journey has really taught me the power of humanity, about really connecting with folks. You know, I’m sitting next to this guy here. He is Conservative, white guy here, and I consider him my brother. And our current environment tells me that he’s supposed to be my enemy. But in reality, he’s my bedrock in this fight. If nothing else, I think that this journey has taught me that if we just take a moment to just be in close proximity to each other and to have a conversation with each other, there’s so much more that we can accomplish because we have so much more in common than we have that separates us.

VOLZ: I would add to that. Watching Desmond lead and knowing his story and knowing our stories and knowing the stories of so many people who havecome alongside of us — I’m a person of faith and I believe that God uses people who are broken and hurting, the outcast, the underdogs, those who have been left behind to bring about change in our communities. And for me, this journey has been a verification of beliefs that are very dear to me and I see them play out in people like Des and others and myself. You know, to know that we’re being used for something that’s bigger than ourselves is incredibly empowering. And I love to see somebody whose voice was silenced, whether by themselves or by somebody else to actually step up and share in front of an entire room of people, “Hey, let me tell you about my felony conviction” and to know that a year ago, they wouldn’t even tell that to their best friend. That’s powerful. MEADE: America loves a good comeback story.

MENENDEZ: Thank you both so much.

MEADE: Thank you.