Apr 29

Apr 29 Episode 494: Desmond Meade

In conversation with Desmond Meade, President and Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and author of Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens. As President and Executive Director of FRRC, which is recognized for its work on voting and criminal justice reform issues, Desmond led the FRRC to a historic victory in 2018 with the successful passage of Amendment 4, a grassroots citizen’s initiative which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions. Amendment 4 represented the single largest expansion of voting rights in the United States in half a century and brought an end to 150 years of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida.

Musical credits:

"Are You Listening" from Elephant Shaped Trees by IMUNURI.
Released February 3, 2018.
Composed by André Pilette, with the help of Adam Garcia, Stephanie Leary, and Dan Wilson.
Lyrics written by Stephanie Leary.
Produced by André Pilette and Stephanie Leary.
Mixed by Brett Ryan Stewart of The Sound Shelter in Nashville, TN.
Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper of Turtle Tone Studio in NYC.
Song used with permission by the band.

Transcript

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Teddy 0:00

Hi, this is Teddy. You're listening to Desmond Meade, President and Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition on the Two Broads Talking Politics Podcast. If you like this podcast, please rate and review at ratethispodcast.com/TwoBroadsTalkingPolitics. Go get your vaccine!

Kelly 0:40

Hi everyone. I'm Kelly and this is Two Broads Talking Politics. I am on today with Desmond Meade, who is the President and Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, and the author of the book, "Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens." Hi, Desmond.

Desmond Meade 0:59

Hey, Kelly, how are you?

Kelly 1:01

Great! So I'm so excited to talk to you today. I have a lot of questions for you. I wanted to start by asking you, last October, I believe, you were able to vote for the first time in the presidential election in 2020. Can you tell me a little bit just about how that felt and what that meant to you?

Desmond Meade 1:25

Thank you so much for that question. When I voted in August, in Florida in our August primary, and that was the first time that I voted in over 30 years. But in November, it was my first presidential election ever. And so those experiences was very, I was, I guess, to say I say dramatic for me, because I really did not expect the reaction that was that I had when I went up to vote. You know, I was, I tell folks all the time, that, in August know, when I was walking up to the voting location that, I felt overwhelming sense that I was actually walking on hallowed ground. And the reason why I felt that because I thought about the blood that was shed on American soil just so people like me can have the right to vote, I thought about my ancestors who were hung on trees and bitten by dogs and, and murdered and sprayed with fire hoses, just so I can have the right to vote as an African American. You know, and I also thought about the blood, sweat and tears that folks across the state of Florida poured into passing Amendment Four, which restored my right to vote. And so I felt that, you know, the ground that I was walking on, was, and what I was getting ready to do was, was a very special moment. And it was a very sacred act that I was getting ready to engage in. And then as I was actually voting, I was in the booth selecting my candidates of choice, I became, I came to realize how, you know, what I was actually doing, was saying much more than just something politically, right, that the act of voting was actually reaffirming my humanity was saying that I am, that I exist, and that I do count, our voice matters. And I have a say, in the direction of my community, the direction of this country, you know, and that was such an empowering, feeling, you know, that, you know, literally reduced me to tears. And it pissed me off at the same time, because I thought about over 700,000 people in Florida, who was not able to experience what I was experiencing, simply because most of them was too poor, to pay any legal financial obligations that the Florida Legislature that was required. You know, and let me tell you, I walked out of there knowing that, you know, I had to make a stronger commitment to fight for the right of every American citizen, to be able to participate in our democracy.

Kelly 4:31

That's so powerful. And it seems like such an important point to me. I think that this conversation around, restoring the right to vote often ends up being sort of a political discussion of political fight. You know, we need to get more people the right to vote because they're going to vote this way. But it seems to me this, this thing you said about restoring people's humanity, their their ability to influence what happens in their locale in the country. It's so important in such an important way to reduce recidivism.

Desmond Meade 5:06

I mean you are so right about that. You know, especially on the first point, let me tell you, you know, and I tell folks this all the time, if you're really a champion for democracy, right, then your fight is for everyone to be able to participate in it. The minute your your efforts are only geared towards people who you think would vote the way you would want them to vote, or people who look like you, then that's not what democracy is all about. And so when we were in the Amendment Four campaign, now, I would tell folks who were fighting just as hard for that person who wanted to vote for Donald Trump, as we are for the person that wish they could have voted for President Barack Obama. Right, because at the end of the day, our democracy flourishes when everyone is spite of our differences of opinion, in spite of the various backgrounds we may have, in spite of the different color of our skin, or ethnicities, that our democracy thrives when we all participate in it. And anyone that's claiming to be a champion for democracy, right, must have that type of mindset.

Kelly 6:21

So I think Florida politics always seems so opaque in a way to those of us outside of Florida. And I think it's so interesting that to get this done to get Amendment Four passed, because it was a constitutional amendment took, I think, 60% of the vote, and anyone who follows Florida knows that often these are, you know, very close margins on elections statewide. But this took 60% of the vote. So what what does it take to organize in Florida? What does that look like? What did that look like on the ground to get enough people to understand the issue to vote? You know, how did you go about that, to push to get Amendment Four passed?

Desmond Meade 7:03

Well, it took a lot of headaches. Already, you know, we say it was it was not an easy task. You know, I do believe Florida is, probably the most difficult state to pass a citizens' initiative. And you know, that 60% threshhold may not seem like much to some folks, but it is, it is very tough to get 60% of the electorate to actually agree on something, you know, but you know, I think what laid the foundation for us to be able to be successful, was the fact that we were organic grassroots movement, there have been many times during the campaign when people will refer to our movement as a bipartisan or even a non partisan campaign. And I will reject both of those. And, and, and remind folks that we're not we were neither one of those that we were an organic grassroots movement that welcomed and enjoyed bipartisan support. And the key difference is that instead of leading with the politics, we lead with people, right. And so that enabled us to really establish a very strong base of grassroots volunteers across the entire state of Florida, that reflected a broad base or broad cross section of diversity. And that proved to be a vehicle that powered us to victory in November of 2018. And the other piece of that, too, was that our campaign was not focused on, you know, tearing people down, it wasn't focused on scaring people into voting for our amendment, or it wasn't focused on division. But rather, our campaign was focused on love and connecting with people from all walks of life and all political persuasions, along the lines of humanity.

Kelly 9:11

So for listeners who may not have been following the story as closely, can you talk a little bit about where things stand now, you mentioned that there were still 700,000 Floridians who were unable to vote because of the financial difficulties that were imposed. Can you talk a little bit about what that meant? So the amendment said that people who had prior convictions could regain the right to vote, but what what does that actually mean in practice?

Desmond Meade 9:41

Well, what the what the Amendment says, basically what it said, you know, unless a person was convicted of murder or felony sexual offense, once they've completed their sentence, that they will automatically be restored their right to vote. And immediate after we passed that amendment the Florida Legislature decided, you know, through, I guess urging of the governor to draft what they call implementation language for Amendment Four, and within the drafting of the implementation language, they inserted a requirement that folks or returning citizens must first pay all of their legal financial obligations. And that means whether it's court costs, fines, fees, restitution, any legal financial obligations that was assessed at the time of sentencing must be thoroughly or completely satisfied, before a person would be able to enjoy the benefits of Amendment Four. Amendment Four cleared the pathway for over 1.4 million people in Florida. However, when the levees when this piece of legislation was passed, it effectively blocked approximately 774,000 of the 1.4 million from being able to, or qualified, to register the vote. And so you know, what we have done, my organization, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, believing that whenever people see obstacles, we see opportunities, we rolled up our sleeves, and we got to work and we created a fines and fees campaign that sought to, number one, utilize the courts to get those legal financial obligations waived. So people will be able to register the vote. And then the second prong of that campaign was to actually fundraise. And we were actually able to raise over $27 million to help people who are too poor, to get rid of those legal financial obligations. And we ended up in over 44,000 returning citizens remove those fines and fees. So if they wanted to that they will, they will, would have been able to register the vote.

Kelly 12:22

And if listeners want to help out with that, are you still raising money so that that more people can have the right to vote restored?

Desmond Meade 12:31

Oh, most definitely. We are no, we are constantly raising money. And we're also expanding the uses of our court system as well, to help get the fines and fees waived, but there plenty counties in which we don't have a court program to actually implement. And in those counties, we're definitely looking at, you know, identifying the individuals that need help with the fines and fees and help them to pay that off. And so folks can, they can go to our website at www.FloridaRRC.com. And on our page, there's opportunity for folks to donate to our fines and fees fund, as well as to our general operating defense fund as well. As we're going about, like right now, we're in the middle of a Free to Vote bus tour, where we're traveling the entire state of Florida. We're interacting with people whose fines and fees, we've paid and given them their receipts for their records, as well as signing new people up for fines and fees program. So they can get processed through our system. And then in addition to that, we're also registering people to vote. You know, this was something that we had planned to do even last year. Because, you know, the work that we do is not dictated by elections. It's dictated by the need to help people restore their humanity and their citizenship. Right. And so we have been playing in there for some time. But it seems like it is a perfect campaign, particularly in response to just the overwhelming amount of legislation that we're seeing across several states in the country that seeks to suppress the vote, you know, and so we're like, Okay, if you want to try to suppress our vote, then we're going to respond to suppression with aggression, which means that we're going to more aggressively be out in our communities registering people to vote, signing them up for fines and fees, and eventually turning them out to participate in upcoming elections.

Kelly 14:55

Recently, Georgia passed a set of voting restrictions that were terrible. And, you know, it got a lot of uproar and a lot of pushback, but really only after it was signed into law. I know that Florida is considering tightening voting regulations, a number of other state legislatures are doing so as well. What should people be doing to really pay attention to these voting restrictions, to which voters they affect? And what can we do to push back on these?

Desmond Meade 15:29

You know, the easy thing would be to tell folks to call their senators and their, and their representatives of the state, if they're, if they live in the state, which these type of suppression laws are being considered. You know, I know that we're actively along with other grassroots organizations engaging with with corporations that do business in the state of Florida, and we're encouraging them to speak out against it. We're, we're encouraging athletes and sports teams, to speak out against it, not after the fact but before this legislation becomes law, but one of the things that is kind of depressing, or infuriating, if you may, is the fact that, you know, you see a lot of these elected officials that they would care less about what the people think. And and, and they've already been bought and sold. And, you know, at the end of the day, they're going to do what they want to do. And part of that is because they don't have great expectations of people actually turning out and voting them out of office. You know, one of the things over the years, and we've seen it with the exception of last election cycle, that, you know, they've been severe levels of voter apathy throughout the country. And when we don't show up the vote, you know, elected official think that they can do whatever they want, and with no consequences. And so what I you know, at the heart of what I would tell people to do, the main thing I would tell people, is that when you're seeing this, not only do you speak out, but you have to become more engaged, it's not good enough that you're registered to vote, and you're going to show up to vote. But you should try to register 10, 20, 50 people, get get folks registered and get them turned out to vote. Because I think that if we vote in mass, we're able to get rid of these politicians, that do not respect a what democracy is all about, and we'll hopefully elect public servants that will listen to the cries of the people.

Kelly 17:55

I hope so. Yes, I think everyone engaged is is important and would be really terrific. I wanted to ask, we're running toward the end of our conversation, but I wanted to ask you about your book. So you had a book that came out last fall. Can you tell us just a little bit about the book itself, and how listeners can get a copy of it?

Desmond Meade 18:21

You know, one of the main reasons why I wrote the book was because, you know, I wanted to be able to give people some sort of inspiration. You know, I know that, you know, life is not rosy for everyone, right? And that we all in some degree, form or fashion, face obstacles in our lives. And there are many of us that, you know, like me suffered from substance abuse, addiction. There's a lot of folks that suffered from homelessness, or even folks that were incarcerated. And, you know, I wanted really, to send a message that no matter what situation we're in, no matter the type of obstacles that we face, that we still have an opportunity to overcome those obstacles and to do great things in our community, in our state, even in our country. And and I really wanted to set myself out as an example, because if me, who was I was addicted to crack cocaine, I was homeless, I was in and out of jail and prison. If my life could be turned around to eventually become one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the world, that means that everyone that reads that book, has an opportunity to be great, and to do great things, to be impactful. That's one. The other thing was that I really needed people to know. One of the greatest things about Amendment Four, and I kind of touched on it earlier was that, you know, over 5.1 million people voted yes on Amendment Four, that we had a million more people vote for our amendment than for any candidate who ran for the governor of the state of Florida, and it was a broad cross section of support. But one of the most beautiful things about that was those 5.1 million votes were not based on aid or fear. Or rather, they were votes that was based on love, forgiveness and redemption. And that night, in Florida, we show the world as a state, that love can in fact win the day, that we can accomplish great things in our community, without having to tear each other down, without having to be fearful of each other, that we can come together as, as, as a people and connect with each other along the lines of humanity and do great things as a as a community, and as a country.

Kelly 20:55

That's beautiful. Thank you so much for all of the work that you do. And thank you for speaking with me today. I will be sure on our website when we post this that we post a link to your book so people can get it. It's wonderful story.

Desmond Meade 21:11

That will be great.

Kelly 21:12

Yeah, and also to the Florida I'm gonna forget all the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. So hopefully people will donate to the the terrific work that you're doing. So thank you so much, Desmond.

Desmond Meade 21:27

Awesome. All right. Well, thank you. You have a great night.

Kelly 21:30

yes you too.

Sonya 22:41

Thank you for listening to Two Broads Talking Politics, part of the DemCast Podcast Network. Our theme song is called "Are You Listening," off of the album Elephant Shaped Trees by the band IMUNARI, and we're using it with permission of the band. Our logo and other original artwork is by Matthew Weflen, and was created for use by this podcast. You can contact us at TwoBroadsTalkingPolitics@gmail.com or on Twitter or Facebook at @TwoBroadsTalk you can find all of our episodes at TwoBroadsTalkingPolitics.com or anywhere podcasts are found.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Apr 29 Episode 494: Desmond Meade

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Musical credits:

Transcript

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