Desmond Meade

Desmond Meade (born July 22, 1967) is a voting rights activist and Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. As chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, Meade led the successful effort to pass Florida Amendment 4, a 2018 state initiative that restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with previous felony convictions. In April 2019, Time magazine named Meade as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Meade's autobiography Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens was published in 2020; in 2021 he was awarded a MacArthur "Genius Grant." He graduated from high school in 1985, then joined the Army as a helicopter mechanic.

Meade then enrolled in Florida International University College of Law, the only public law school in south Florida, graduating in 2013. Because felon disenfranchisement is part of Florida's Constitution, which requires a 60% vote to modify, many efforts to restore voting rights to former convicts had been unsuccessful.

Starting in 2015, Meade led Floridians for Fair Democracy in a drive to qualify the "Voting Restoration Amendment" as a ballot initiative for the 2018 Florida elections, collecting 799,000 signatures. The initiative was approved in January 2018 for the November ballot. Ultimately, the amendment passed, as Florida Amendment 4, with 64.55% of the vote. On January 8, 2019, an estimated 1.4 million ex-felons became eligible to vote.

Restrictions on Amendment 4

Republican lawmakers in Florida responded to Amendment 4 by passing a new law (SB 7066), disqualifying from voting any felons who had unpaid fines or legal judgments against them. As a result, more than half of the 1.4 million felon voters were again disqualified. On appeal, the new law was overturned in May, 2020, by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, who ruled that the 24th Amendment prohibits Florida from conditioning voting on payment of fines and fees.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appealed Hinkle's injunction to the 11th Circuit Court, which, in September, 2020, overturned the injunction by a 6-4 margin, with the majority holding that "requirement that felons pay all financial obligations before voting does not violate their due process rights or impose a poll tax." The FRRC raised $28M for people with past felony convictions in Florida who needed to pay fines and fees before they could vote; the obligations of over 44,000 returning citizens were paid before the November 2020 election.

Appeal for full civil rights restoration and pardon

Although Meade graduated from law school in 2013, Florida law prevents him (or anyone with a past felony conviction) from being admitted to the Florida Bar. Amendment 4 restored voting rights, but not other civil rights, such as the right to run for office or to sit for Florida's bar examination (required for practicing law in Florida.)

Meade sought to regain his civil rights, appealing to Florida's clemency board and also asking for a pardon. The clemency process in Florida was made more restrictive by former Florida Governor Rick Scott, according to CBS News, so that the board "has discretion to deny clemency for any reason, mandates that applicants wait at least five years before starting the process, and are given just five minutes to speak in a hearing."

At a clemency board hearing on September 23, 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denied Meade the pardon he would need to regain these civil rights. He also stated that Meade was not eligible to have his civil rights restored because he had applied for a pardon.

Florida Secretary of Agriculture Nikki Fried, the only Democrat on the clemency board, and the only board member who voted to restore Meade's civil rights, said that, during the two years of DeSantis's governorship, the board had approved only 30 requests from thousands of applications and called the Florida clemency system "broken."

Autobiography

Meade's autobiography Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens was published in 2020 by Beacon Press. NPR called it "a compelling story." Publishers Weekly said that Meade "does a skillful job taking readers through the blow-by-blow of the campaign, including the process of writing the actual text of the referendum, and makes a persuasive case that restoring the civil rights of ex-felons will lower rates of recidivism."

Personal life

In December 2012, Meade married his wife Sheena, a labor activist and the mother of five children, whom he has adopted. They live in Orlando, Florida.

Recognition

Time 100 Most Influential People in 2019 Orlando Sentinel 2019 Central Floridian of the Year University of Florida's Bob Graham Center for Public Service's 2019 Floridian of the Year Miami Dade College Alumni Hall of Fame 2021 MacArthur Fellowship Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bard College

In June 2020, Meade was featured in a RepresentUs video focused on highlighting problems with America's criminal justice system.