Last year, a Minnesota convict, Leonard Richards, won declaratory relief in Minnesota state court that he should have been allowed to file for the Democratic nomination for U.S. House in 2006. The U.S. Constitution protects the right of anyone to run for Congress who meets the Constitutional qualifications, yet Richards had not been allowed to run because prison officials had refused to deliver the declaration of candidacy forms. This story had been covered in the March 1, 2008 printed Ballot Access News.
Now, Richards has been awarded his court costs, since he was the prevailing party. On March 16, the Minnesota District Court, Rice County, awarded Richards $265 to compensate him for the money he spent filing the lawsuit and serving the opposition. Richards v Ritchie, 66-cv-06-1517.
I am actually surprised to even hear of such a case. Most states strip convicted persons of this right as the right to vote until the sentencing time and any parole has been completed.
I’d like to see more about this n detail.
He can’t vote, but he can run for Congress. There is a line of judicial cases stretching back 100 years that say even people who can’t vote, can run for Congress. That’s why the Socialist Party was able to run women for Congress in states in which those women were not able to vote for themselves. That’s why Gene Debs could run for president in 1920 while he was in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta for “espionage”.
GPMI nominated wrongly imprisoned Benton Harbor community activist Rev. Edward Pinkney to run against Whirlpool scion Fred Upton last year. I’m not sure if that’s why they moved him to the farthest prison in the UP — or why they couldn’t move him out of state. . . .
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jalp
(this time *for* GPMI —
at least the first sentence)
I can’t think of any reason a convict shouldn’t run for Congress. Congress seems, after all, to be the natural habitat for convicts, and, for that matter, criminals who haven’t yet been convicted.
“There is no native criminal class except Congress.”
Or pick another favorite Twain quote on Congress from here:
http://www.TwainQuotes.com/Congress.html
Maybe this one?
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
– Mark Twain, a Biography
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jalp (*of* GPMI)