A federal appeals court rendered a decisive victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis and legislative Republicans last year in upholding Florida’s law requiring felons to pay all fines, fees, and restitution before they can win back the right to vote under 2018’s Amendment 4.
But that ruling, by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, didn’t quite kill every challenge to the law, known as SB 7066.
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The plaintiffs now before the court are Rosemary McCoy and Sheila Singleton, two Black women with felony records who have been denied the right to vote under the Florida law because their criminal records prevent them from getting jobs that would pay enough for them to satisfy restitution orders.
The defendants include DeSantis and Laurel Lee, Florida’s secretary of state, who oversees elections.
“Appellants’ lawsuit requires the state of Florida to acknowledge the compounding impact of race, class, and gender in a law like Senate Bill 7066 that ties the payment of legal financial obligations (“LFOs”) to the right to vote, but artificially disentangles the continuing burdens low-income women of color face in satisfying those financial obligations,” their lawyers wrote in their opening brief.
