{"id":21568,"date":"2017-03-31T11:06:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T17:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=21568"},"modified":"2017-03-31T11:06:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T17:06:01","slug":"bill-to-end-voter-waiting-period-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=21568","title":{"rendered":"Bill to end voter waiting period advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senators advanced a bill from general file March 31 that would restore voting rights upon completion of a felony sentence or probation. Current law requires a two-year waiting period.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Justin Wayne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, sponsor of LB75, said the two-year waiting period is unnecessary and unjust. Approximately 95 percent of people in prison will re-enter society at some point, he said, and it is in the best interest of the state to make sure that they have the tools necessary to reintegrate successfully.<\/p>\n

Research shows that ex-felons who have their voting rights restored are three times less likely to reoffend, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a person has paid their debts to society \u2013 and all their fines and issues have been dealt with \u2013 they should be involved in the democratic process,\u201d Wayne said.<\/p>\n

Gretna Sen. John Murante expressed concern about the constitutionality of the bill, citing a provision in the Nebraska Constitution that ties voting rights for ex-felons to the restoration of other civil rights. He also questioned whether individuals who have been criminally convicted of voter fraud should be near ballots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is putting fire near gasoline \u2013 and to me, it\u2019s bad public policy,\u201d Murante said.<\/p>\n

LB75 advanced to select file on a 28-8 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senators advanced a bill from general file March 31 that would restore voting rights upon completion of a felony sentence or probation. Current law requires a two-year waiting period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-21568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-justin-wayne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/LB75Wayne3-31-17a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21570,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21568\/revisions\/21570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}