Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo
People gather around a Ben and Jerry's ‘Yes on 4’ truck to learn about Amendment 4, in Miami, October 2018.
The celebrations that marked the passage of Florida’s Amendment 4 in 2018, the historic measure that restored voting rights to returning citizens, were short-lived. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican state lawmakers gutted the ballot initiative in 2019, mandating that all fees, fines, and restitution be paid before a returning citizen could regain the right to vote.
Returning citizens are eager to pay off their debts in order to vote in one of the most important elections in recent history. But to satisfy the new requirements, they are forced to jump through hoops to document past charges and pay fines, while the governor continues to throw up last-minute obstacles to deter ex-felons from voting. Yet, as the clock runs out on the 2020 election season, one returning citizen’s journey to the ballot box may provide a measure of hope for the men and women following him on the difficult road to exercising franchise.
For four years, Rodney Jones served as the president of the NAACP’s Pensacola chapter, until he stepped down earlier this year. The 2020 election marks Jones’s first time voting in a presidential contest. He worked diligently for over two weeks to track down all his documents, going to several different offices, since his charges were so dated and no longer archived in his local clerk of court’s office. But there was an even more challenging battle ahead: paying about $10,000 in restitution to the victims he hurt many years ago. Most individuals don’t have charges in the five figures; and although many of them want to right their wrongs, they don’t have the money.
“A victim of his own circumstances,” is how Rodney Jones now describes the young man he once was. Growing up in poverty meant he had few opportunities for teenage activities like going to the movies or eating out with friends. “Nice shoes, nice clothing. These are simple things to many people,” Jones says. “However, if you grow up in an impoverished area, a lot of these things aren’t just readily available to you; I started to gravitate to things that would help me get the things that other people had.”
“It’s like taxation without representation,” Shareef says. “I can pay taxes but I have no voice when it comes to someone representing me, whether it’s from a local level or a federal and state level.”
Those things put him on a path to prison. Jones was 12 years old when he and his friends began breaking into garages to steal small items they could sell. In the next few years, he began selling drugs, which led to run-ins with the law. He didn’t have any positive role models in a neighborhood where many people did the same things to stay afloat. He finally moved away, drifting to Chicago and later to New York as his life continued to unravel.
After serving three years in federal prison, he returned to Pensacola and to his bad habits. “I just got sucked back into that way of life again,” he says. Jones eventually broke away from the old friends and family members who had encouraged his drug dealing and gang lifestyle. He worked hard not to let the disappointments of unemployment and poverty take him back down a destructive path.
“Looking at my past and how I came up, I never would’ve dreamed of ever aspiring to this position, let alone holding this position,” Jones says of his work with the NAACP.
Trying to regain his right to vote was a surreal experience for Jones, knee-deep as he was in the fight to help end returning-citizen disenfranchisement, while simultaneously fighting to regain his own rights. “Many of these people live in poverty still,” Jones says. Some may even have to make a payment plan for $200. To a person who has no money and they’re struggling, that’s a lot of money.”
However, the vast majority of returning citizens in Florida won’t be voting in 2020. Jones’s friend Khateeb Shareef is one of those people. They’ve known each other since they were five years old. Their mothers were close friends and the two men are more like brothers. He completed his sentence in 2000, but Shareef, who shares a backstory similar to Jones’s, is still fighting to have his rights reinstated. “It’s like taxation without representation,” Shareef says. “I can pay taxes but I have no voice when it comes to someone representing me, whether it’s from a local level or a federal and state level.”
Shareef’s experience is a painful reminder of how Florida lawmakers continue to play politics with the constitutional rights of people who are now determined to make a difference in their cities and towns. He encourages returning citizens to stay informed about the issues on the ballot and continue to fight to be reinstated. To maintain and strengthen his civic ties, Shareef decided to help local candidates campaign in his community, even though he wouldn’t be able to vote for them in 2020.
