In Senate testimony yesterday, the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights lamented, “In one form or another, laws that disenfranchise individuals with felony convictions have existed in the United States since its founding. In fact, 29 states had such laws on the books at the time of the ratification of the Constitution.”
Now, let me first note that it is useful to have another instance (there are plenty more) where a proponent of re-enfranchising felons concedes that these laws were on the books even when there was no conceivable racial motive for them (since it is often suggested that these laws are all rooted in the Jim Crow era). After all, blacks were generally not allowed to vote in antebellum days anyhow — even in the North, let alone in the South — so there was no need to use felon-voting restrictions as an indirect means to keep them from voting.
But of course what is most eye-catching about the quote is its premise that there were more than 13 states at the time of the ratification of the Constitution. I was tempted not to ridicule the testimony for what may have been a typographical error, except (a) I’m not sure how a simple typo would explain this, and (b) if you google “states had such laws on the books at the time of the ratification” you’ll see that this language is taken verbatim from a formal report joined by a number of organizations in the Civil Rights Establishment and submitted to the United Nations, of all places, and has been quoted elsewhere and with approval.
So, I’ve decided to go ahead and ridicule all involved for their historical ignorance.