New Jersey Assembly Passes Bill to Restore Vote to People on Parole and Probation

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ,  U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement on the New Jersey State Assembly’s passage today of a measure to reinstate voting rights for New Jerseyans on parole and probation:

“Voting is a cornerstone of our democracy, and democracy functions better when more people can vote, not fewer. Those who have paid their debt to society shouldn’t be blocked from participating in this most basic and sacred institution of our democracy. This is especially true when state disenfranchisement laws have a massive and disproportionate impact on people of color. I applaud the New Jersey Assembly’s decision to pass this important reform to strengthen our state’s democracy and restore justice to our justice system.”

Earlier this year, Booker introduced a measure at the federal level to reinstate voting rights for formerly incarcerated individuals in federal elections as part of his Next Step Act, with Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). He is also a co-sponsor of the Democracy Restoration Act, which would similarly restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals.

But Assembly Republicans Jon Bramnick, Hal Wirths, Jay Webber and Betty Lou DeCroce called on Democrats to shift their focus to taxpayers instead of prisoners, probationers and parolees.

After raising taxes by $3 billion over the past two years – over half of which hit the middle class and working poor the hardest – Democrats provided student aid to prisoners and gave probationers and parolees the ability to vote.