On February 26, the U.S. Supreme Court asked Massachusetts to respond to the cert petition in Simmons v Galvin, 09-559. Generally, if one side asks the Court to hear a case, and the other side doesn’t bother to respond, the Court will ask the other side to file a response if the Court is somewhat interested in the case. The issue in Simmons v Galvin is whether the federal Voting Rights Act has any relevance to state laws that prevent ex-felons and felons from registering to vote. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
The U.S. Supreme Court seems quite interested in election law this year. It has already taken one election law case, Doe v Reed, on petition privacy. It also seems interested in Citizens for Police Accountability v Browning, the Florida case on petitioning at the polls.
If they take the case, I hope they’ll apply or restrict voting rights with equanimity. After all, felon corporate ‘persons” should have no more or less voting rights than individual flesh and blood felons.
By all means, let’s stay reasonable and dispassionate as we put accord corporate “persons” EXACTLY the same constitutional rights as the rest of us “persons.”
But I wonder…where we should imprison corporations convicted of felonies?