ANNAPOLIS — The Maryland Senate on Tuesday overrode Gov. Larry Hogan’s final veto from last year on legislation that would allow felons to vote before they complete probation or parole.
The Senate secured the exact three-fifths majority it needed to override the veto on the ex-felon voting rights bills, which now will become law in 30 days and affect about 40,000 people. The override was a show of strength by Democrats, who dominate both chambers of the General Assembly.
It took a few tries to overturn vetoes on the two bills sponsored by Sen. Joan Carter Conway and Delegate Cory McCray, both Democrats representing Baltimore.
Senators voted largely along party lines, though four Democrats voted with Republicans to sustain the GOP governor’s veto.
The Senate approved Ms. Conway’s bill with 29 votes but was one vote shy of passing Mr. McCray’s bill because Sen. Douglas J.J. Peters, Prince George’s County Democrat, had left the chamber and accidentally missed the vote.
To reconsider a vote, a senator on the prevailing side must request that a bill be recalled. Sen. Katherine A. Klausmeier, Baltimore County Democrat, had voted to sustain the veto, but she recalled the bill, saying she wanted to give every member a chance to vote.
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When Mr. Hogan issued his veto last year, he argued that felons should be expected to serve out their complete sentence before being given the right to vote again. He had pushed hard for his veto on this particular bill to be sustained.
Supporters of the legislation argued that changing the current requirements for felons to finish their full sentences, including probation and parole, before they can register to vote would help them rejoin society.
The vote had been delayed twice in order to ensure an empty seat in the Senate could be filled.
The legislation has been touted as helping solve deep-rooted racial issues, and senators pointed out that the disenfranchisement of persons on probation and parole disproportionately affects people of color.
“This is the right thing to do,” Ms. Conway said on the floor.
Sen. Joanne C. Benson, who slipped and fell Monday night and needed stitches on her head, said she disobeyed doctor’s orders to rest in order to make the vote, arguing that she wanted to rectify a situation that prevents many people — many of them like her African-American — in her district from voting.
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“It’s unfair,” said Ms. Benson, Prince George’s County Democrat. “The whole system is unfair.”
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Calvert County Democrat, called voting rights for felons a “long, hard struggle,” comparing it to giving suffrage to women, blacks, Native Americans and many others.
“It’s not Republican or Democrat or trying to increase anybody’s political base. It’s just a question of living out the golden rule of doing to others as you would have them do unto you,” he said. “That’s what government should be about, it’s morally what we’re about.”
Greg Carpenter rejoiced after the vote, hugging his fellow voting rights advocates who came to the State House to see the bill become law. After serving 20 years in prison for a robbery, he’s been on parole for the last 21 years, unable to vote. Though his parole has been abated, he couldn’t still cast a ballot.
“I don’t know if I’m lost for words or what,” he said with a wide smile. “This is a great moment, I guess, in the history of Maryland.”
He has worked in Baltimore and paid taxes for 21 years, he said, but hadn’t been able to choose his representation. He spoke about being unable to choose between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president, and between Elizabeth Embry and David Warnock for mayor of Baltimore. But at least he has the choice now, he said.
“I might vote early,” he said. “This is a great moment for me. This is very personal for me because I’ve never voted in my life and I’m over 60. My lifetime was in a turbulent kind of place and I made some mistakes and as a result of the mistakes, it put me out of the process.”
Republicans spoke out against overturning the veto, and pointing to constitutional issues stemming from Sen. Craig Zucker vote for the bill.
Mr. Zucker, Montgomery County Democrat, voted to overturn the veto last month when he was in the House of Delegates. Last week, he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Senate. He is the first person in the history of the legislature to cast a vote on the same bill in two different chambers — something Republicans have argued might be illegal.
Senate Minority Leader J.B. Jennings, Harford County Republican, asked for the Senate to vote only on Ms. Conway’s bill, which the House has not yet voted on, in order to ensure that there is no overlap between the two chambers. His motion was struck down, and the Senate voted on and overturned both vetoes.
Mr. Jennings called out the process by which both vetoes were overturned, arguing that Mr. McCray’s bill should never have been put forward for a second vote.
“We get paid to sit in our seats and make the votes. He should’ve been here, he shouldn’t have gotten up,” he said. “There’s been many times where somebody will get up, go out and either use the restroom or some other reason, and they miss a vote, that’s the risk they take for leaving the chamber. And I think the vote was taken, I don’t think we should’ve reconsidered it. The bill failed, plain and simple.”
Mr. Hogan blasted the legislature’s decision, saying that Senate leadership “had to go to great lengths and twist a lot of arms and pull a lot of strings and delay the vote four times and take a vote today when they didn’t have the votes and then hold it up again, it’s very unusual circumstances to do something that almost everybody in Maryland is opposed to.”
He said he didn’t take the veto override personally, but that an “overwhelming supermajority of people in the state in both parties” would object to felons being allowed to vote while still on probation or parole.
“We’re making some progress, but obviously we still need some bipartisan reform and we’re going to have to do something about that legislature. We can’t keep ignoring the will of the people,” he said. “I think there are several people who won’t survive this vote. No chance of being re-elected after that vote today.”
• Anjali Shastry can be reached at ashastry@washingtontimes.com.
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