The ACLU, Civic Nebraska, Faegre Drinker law firm and three other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit with the Nebraska Supreme Court in response to the recent blockage of a bill to restore a felon’s voting rights in Nebraska upon completion of their sentence.
The suit was in response to the recent blocking of LB20, which was ruled unconstitutional on Wednesday, July 17.
It was filed against election officials and the Douglas and Hall County election commissioners asking for the voting rights to be restored before the presidential election in November.
“The Nebraska Constitution is clear: Only courts can overturn a law as unconstitutional." said Jonathan Topaz, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. "Yet the secretary of state’s directive attempts to do just that, undermining the will of the voters and lawlessly reinstating permanent felony disenfranchisement. It would overturn a law passed by the democratically elected legislature, re-disenfranchise thousands of Nebraska citizens, and upend two decades of rights restoration law less than four months out from a presidential election. It cannot stand.”
LB20 was blocked after Attorney General Mike Hilgers issued an opinion that it was unconstitutional, which was followed by Secretary of State Robert Evnen stating that only the Pardons Board has the ability to grant that right. The decision extends beyond LB20 to statute 29-112, the law that currently allows people to vote two-years after a completed felony sentence.
Gregory Spung, T.J. King and Jeremy Jonak are the three other plaintiffs in the case.
“To me, this is about being fully part of society now that I have made up for a past mistake,” said Spung. “There is an important election ahead of us, and I was excited that I could be part of it. All we are asking is for officials to follow the law and let us vote.”
The case was filed with a request to bypass litigation due to the “urgency and nature” as 7,000 Nebraskans were newly eligible to vote, but can no longer register. Now, anybody with a felony conviction, no matter how long ago their term was completed, can't register.
“Civic Nebraska built a robust voter registration initiative to help thousands of affected Nebraskans register under the new law," said Steve Smith, director of communications for Civic Nebraska. "We were forced to halt that work less than two days before the law was to take effect because of the unilateral action of our state’s executive branch. We have turned to the Nebraska Supreme Court to instruct the executive branch to do what it will not do: follow the law.”
The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and public policy institute at New York University (NYU), released an analysis on the decision. Authors Patrick Berry and Kendall Karson Verhovek detailed the laws from both a Nebraska and national perspective.
“The actions by the Attorney General and the Secretary of State are simply unprecedented and unlawful,” Berry said. “The Attorney General and the Secretary of State are not a court, they do not have the authority to override duly enacted laws passed by the legislature.”
Berry said that the Nebraska Supreme Court has the opportunity to answer the question of who can restore this right, legislation or state officials.
“Nebraska's Constitution doesn't say that one particular government agency entity has authority to restore voting rights," Berry said. "The argument that the Attorney General's making and that the Secretary of State is relying on finds no support in the text of the Nebraska constitution."