Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

by Stacey Abrams

I met Desmond in 2017, as he traveled the country raising money for Amendment 4, a ballot initiative to restore voting rights to felons in his state. Desmond served his sentence and earned a law degree; however, state law did not allow him to sit for a bar license or to vote in any election. Undeterred, he launched the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, secured more than 760,000 signatures, and got the amendment placed on the ballot. Amendment 4 passed by an overwhelming majority in 2018, and it should have placed Florida in the category of automatic restoration after completion of a sentence. In 2019, however, a hyper-partisan GOP-led state legislature passed and DeSantis signed SB 7066.11 The bill reverses the amendment’s language, using the “completion of sentence” clause to undermine the clear intent of the 64.5 percent of voters who approved the change.12 Under the new law, completing a sentence means not only release, but the completion of probation, parole, the fulfillment of any terms ordered by the courts, the termination of any ordered supervision, and full payment of any ordered fines, fees, costs, or restitution.