"Ideology over Strategy: Extending Voting Rights to Felons and Ex-Felons, 1966-1992"
Brett C. Burkhardt, Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1180 Observatory Dr.,
Madison, WI 53706, USA
Direct all correspondence to Brett C. Burkhardt at [email protected]
Accepted for publication at the Social Science Journal.
The following people provided helpful feedback on this paper at various stages of development:
Pamela Oliver, Chad Goldberg, Charles Halaby, RRR, Adam Slez, Richard Aviles, Jay
Burlingham, and Markus Gangl. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the 2008 Annual
Meeting of the American Sociological Association and the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Society
for the Study of Social Problems. All errors are my own.
1
Ideology over Strategy: Extending Voting Rights to Felons and Ex-Felons, 1966-1992
ABSTRACT: The disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons has long served to restrict the
practice of democracy in the United States. In the late 20th century, a number of states allowed
increasing numbers of felons and ex-felons to vote. Previous work has noted that Democrats are
often associated with extensions of voting rights to felons and ex-felons. If this is the case, what
accounts for their support for re-enfranchisement? In this paper I conduct a series of event
history analyses of voting rights policy changes at the state level. I argue that Democratic
support was not based on expected electoral benefits that might derive from changes in the
composition of the electorate. Instead, analyses suggest that would-be reformers—often
Democratic, but also Republican—were importantly constrained by the ideological climate
among a state’s population. Thus, policy liberalism appears to have trumped crass partisan
strategizing in encouraging restoration of voting rights to felons and ex-felons. Results also
confirm claims that local patterns of racial domination were relevant in decisions to reenfranchise or not.
2
The right to vote in the United States has never been universally or unconditionally
granted to persons residing in the country (Foner 1992; Keyssar 2000). Aside from prohibiting
disenfranchisement based on race, gender, and age (after various Amendments), the United
States Constitution leaves matters of voter qualifications and disqualifications to the individual
states. State-to-state variation in qualifications for voting rights thus results in “something of a
crazy-quilt of disqualifications and restoration [of voting rights] procedures” (U.S. Office of the
Pardon Attorney 1996: 1).
Criminal behavior has a long and ongoing history as a disqualification for voting in the
U.S. Keyssar (2000) writes, “[A]lthough race, class, mobility, literacy, and the ability to speak
English have ceased to be formal impediments to voting, good behavior is still required” (308).
Convicted felons constitute the largest group of otherwise-eligible Americans who are denied the
right to vote (Keyssar 2000). States differ on whether and how they deny voting rights to
convicted felons. Disqualification can apply to those currently serving time in prison; to those
released from prison on parole; to convicted felons serving a sentence of probation; or to exfelons, who have otherwise completed their sentences. By 2007, roughly 5.3 million Americans
were denied the right to vote as a result of prior felony conviction. This amounts to one in fortyone adults. Of these disenfranchised citizens, a disproportionate number were black men (The
Sentencing Project 2010).
The late 20th century was a relatively liberal time in terms of returning voting rights to
felons and ex-felons. In this paper I attempt to add theoretical nuance to existing explanations of
this re-enfranchisement trend of the late 20th century. 1 I argue that Democratic politicians were
important agents of re-enfranchisement, but I fail to find evidence that their support was aimed at
adding new Democratic voters to the electorate. Instead, I find that contextual factors—racial
1
I use the terms “re-enfranchisement” and “liberalization” interchangeably.
3
and, especially, ideological contexts—shaped the extent to which politicians—Republicans as
well as Democrats—could liberalize felon voting laws in a state.
FELON DISENFRANCHISEMENT AND RE-ENFRANCHISEMENT IN THE UNITED
STATES
The first state-level disenfranchisement law based on felony conviction—adopted by
Connecticut—dates to 1818. The 1840’s witnessed a first wave of states, mainly in the
Northeast, adopting felon disenfranchisement statutes. A second wave of adoptions, many in the
South, occurred after the Civil War. Post-Reconstruction rates of disenfranchisement across
states were essentially stable through the middle of the 20th century, with roughly 70 percent of
states disenfranchising all classes of felons and more than 80 percent of states disenfranchising
selected classes of felons (Manza and Uggen 2006: Chapter 2). The 1960’s and 1970’s saw a
sharp decline in the number of states disenfranchising non-incarcerated felons (Behrens, Uggen,
and Manza 2003: 564-67).2
Why did more and more state-level politicians remove voting restrictions for felons and
ex-felons in the second half of the 20th century? Previous research on felon voting rights
specifically and policy change more generally suggests explanations based on partisan politics,
electoral calculations, policy ideology, and patterns of racial domination.
Partisan Politics and Expected Changes in the Electorate
Extending voting rights to previously disenfranchised citizens has the potential to bring
new voters into election booths. If these newly enfranchised voters vote similarly to existing
voters, the electoral consequences of re-enfranchisement will be nil. But few people believe this
2
Partially offsetting this decline in ex-felon disenfranchisement was a slight increase in number
of states denying voting rights for incarcerated felons (Behrens, Uggen, and Manza 2003: 56467).
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to be the case. Both popular and academic writers believe that felons and ex-felons will
disproportionately prefer Democratic candidates to Republican ones. Political writer Edward
Feser took this as a given when he wrote in 2005, “After three national electoral defeats in a row,
the Democrats need to enlarge their base. If that means reaching out to lock in the pedophile and
home-invader vote, so be it” (Feser 2005, paragraph 2). Indeed, statistical analysis confirms the
intuition that felons are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. Uggen and Manza
(2002) produced a set of counterfactual scenarios regarding recent election outcomes. They used
socio-demographic variables of felons—including gender, race, age, income, labor force status,
marital status, and education—to estimate likely turnout and vote choice of felons and ex-felons.
Based on their calculations, hypothetical voter turnout rates in recent elections among felons
would have been low, but these voters would strongly prefer Democratic candidates to
Republican ones (also see Burch 2007; Vito, Shutt, and Tewksbury 2009). 3
If felons and ex-felons are highly Democratic (or even assumed to be so by political
actors), it stands to reason that Democrats in government should drive, or at least support,
attempts to re-enfranchise. Several empirical analyses have examined the influence of
Democrats in recent liberalization events, but the findings are inconsistent. Behrens, Uggen, and
Manza (2003) used a discrete-time event history analysis to examine liberalizations from 1940
through 2002. The authors found no relation between Democrats’ political power in state
government and states’ repeals of disenfranchisement laws. Other researchers have reported
evidence of party differentials in support for re-enfranchisement. Yoshinaka and Grose (2005)
3
At least two studies have argued that turnout rates among enfranchised ex-felons would be
negligible and unlikely to sway any elections (Haselswerdt 2009; Miles 2004). Although these
studies take issue with Uggen and Manza’s (2002) estimates of voter turnout levels, they do not
deny the partisan nature of the felon or ex-felon population.
5
used a state-level rare-events logistic regression analysis to look at all extensions of voting rights
to any class of felons or ex-felons between 1960 and 1999. Unlike Behrens, Uggen, and Manza
(2003), they concluded that partisan political strategy was the driving force behind liberalization.
Specifically, they found that liberalization was more likely to occur in the presence of a unified
Democratic government, in which the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature
were controlled by Democrats. The authors argued that when a state government is under
unified Democratic control, Republicans, through numbers alone, are unable to block legislation
they may deem harmful or distasteful—for example, ex-felon re-enfranchisement (Yoshinaka
and Grose 2005).
This view of Democratic support is lent additional credence by a series of case studies of
more recent re-enfranchisement actions. Conn (2005) examined legislative voting records and
commentary from people involved in ex-felon re-enfranchisement campaigns in Connecticut (in
2001), Maryland (in 2002), and New Mexico (in 2001), all of which were successful. Conn
shows that in these cases, support for re-enfranchisement was largely divided along party lines,
with Democrats in support and Republicans in opposition. In these cases, solid Democratic
support for ex-felon re-enfranchisement was facilitated by strong party organization and
discipline and highly institutionalized legislatures and staffs.
In sum, counterfactual analyses offer evidence that felons are more likely to vote
Democratic (Uggen and Manza 2002), and selected analyses find that Democrats have been
associated with recent re-enfranchisement efforts (Conn 2005; Yoshinaka and Grose 2005).
Given this evidence, Hypothesis 1 seeks to confirm the following: Re-enfranchisement will be
associated with Democrat-controlled governments.
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If Democrats are more likely to support re-enfranchisement, what is the basis of their
support? One possibility is that Democrats acted strategically to manipulate the composition of
the electorate as a means of maximizing their likelihood of future electoral successes; i.e., by
enfranchising Democratic voters. Yet any potential gain in new voters would have to be weighed
against any potential political costs, which would come in the form of backlash from existing
voters. Re-enfranchisement of felons and ex-felons is a potentially divisive political issue (Conn
2005: 529-531; Preuhs 2001: 741). A 2002 nationally representative survey found that although
roughly 60 percent of respondents supported voting rights for parolees and probationers, only 31
percent supported voting rights for felons doing time in prison. The same survey also found that
although 80 percent of respondents supported voting rights for the generic category of ex-felons,
levels of support dropped to slightly over 60 percent when asked specifically about white-collar
criminals or violent criminals, and dropped to only 52 percent when asked about sex criminals
(Manza and Uggen 2006: Ch. 9). Although public support for re-enfranchisement may be quite
high for particular survey items, it clearly is not robust across all categories of felons and is
hardly universal. As a result, it is unlikely that Democratic government officials would
indiscriminately push re-enfranchisement without careful consideration of the prevailing
electoral environment in the state.
Previous work has shown that American political parties calibrate their support for public
policy changes in the face of relevant electoral factors. For example, Democrats in control of
state legislatures have been more likely to increase welfare spending when they are also faced
with the legitimate threat of losing seats in the legislature (Barrilleaux, Holbrook, and Langer
2002). Similarly, Republicans in control of state legislatures have been more likely to increase
prison admissions when they face tight competition over legislative seats (Stucky, Heimer, and
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Lang 2005). In both cases, control of the government does not in itself lead to policy change.
Instead, the controlling parties enact policy changes that are strategically attractive. In these
cases, the policies play to the parties’ core supporters, thereby mobilizing the base and enhancing
the party’s future electoral fortunes.
In the context of ex-felon re-enfranchisement, strategic Democratic politicians should
weigh the benefits of gaining would-be Democratic voters (felons and ex-felons) against the
potential costs of alienating existing (non-felon) voters. Given the potential political costs, it is
reasonable to think that Democrats, acting strategically, would withhold support unless the
expected benefit—a net gain in Democratic voters—is sufficiently large. If felons and ex-felons
prefer Democrats to Republicans, it follows that Democrats will benefit when relatively large
numbers of them are brought into the electorate. All else equal, the optimal scenario for
Democrats would be to enfranchise all felons and ex-felons, as the result will be a net gain in
Democratic voters. Given the potential political costs of pushing liberalization, Democrats
should be less supportive of re-enfranchisement where the payoff is likely to be small. The
expected net benefit to Democrats will decrease as the number of felons or ex-felons being
enfranchised decreases. Thus, if Democrats view re-enfranchisement as a potential strategic
enhancement of their electoral fates, we would expect to observe re-enfranchisement in states
that (1) are controlled by Democrats, and (2) have a large number of felons or ex-felons.
For Republicans, the number of felons or ex-felons should be irrelevant to their level of
support for re-enfranchisement. Regardless of whether their opposition is ideological or
strategic, Republican opposition will be forthcoming under any political conditions. If
opposition is ideological, Republicans should oppose voting rights for felons on principle. And
if their opposition is strategic, and based on expected net vote losses, they should still
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unconditionally oppose re-enfranchisement, as re-enfranchisement of any size is expected to
result in net losses of votes.
Thus, the size of the “ex-felon pool” in the state—that is, the size of the ex-felon
population—is likely to weigh heavily in Democratic strategizing with regard to reenfranchisement. Provided that Republicans do indeed have a lower (or zero) propensity to
support re-enfranchisement—due to the lack of any anticipated electoral gain from enfranchising
ex-felons—the size of this ex-felon pool should not be relevant to Republican politicians. This
scenario leads to Hypothesis 2: The size of a state’s ex-felon population will be associated with
increased liberalization, but only when Democrats control the state government; or, equivalently,
unified Democratic governments will be more likely to re-enfranchise as the ex-felon pool
increases.
Ideological Context
Although re-enfranchisement may “create” new voters, it also affects existing voters, who
may or may not support such a policy change. The prevailing ideological context in a state gives
an indication of how likely citizens are to support (or oppose) legislation aimed at restoring
rights to a stigmatized group (i.e., felons). Previous work has found that states with conservative
citizens are more likely to enact policies antagonistic toward minority groups such as recent
immigrants (Chavez and Provine 2009), and states with liberal citizens are more likely to pass
supportive policies, such as favorable hate crimes legislation relating to lesbians, gays, and
bisexuals (Pappas, Mendez, and Herrick 2009). Conservative citizens may likewise restrict
politicians’ ability to enact laws extending voting rights to greater numbers of felons and exfelons. This leads to Hypothesis 3: Re-enfranchisement will be less likely to occur in states with
relatively conservative citizens.
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Racial Context
Historical (Keyssar 2000; Klinkner and Smith 1999) and sociological (Behrens et al.
2003) research demonstrates the centrality of racial stratification in the rise of felon
disenfranchisement laws, and work by Behrens, Uggen, and Manza (2003) shows that despite a
recent trend toward increased liberalization, racial stratification remained relevant to felon voting
regimes through the end of the 20th century. From 1940 to 2002, re-enfranchisement was most
likely to occur in those states where blacks stood to gain the least from it. States with
proportionately fewer of their black population in prison—a proxy for the number of black felons
—were most likely to extend voting rights; states with proportionately more of their black
population in prison were less likely to extend voting rights. Thus, contemporary liberalization
was driven largely by those states in which it would have relatively minor political consequences
for black voting. I attempt to replicate the negative relationship between re-enfranchisement and
racial disparities in felon status. Thus, Hypothesis 4 states: Re-enfranchisement will be
associated with states where blacks are least over-represented among felons.
DATA AND METHODS
In the analyses that follow, I examine American states during the years 1966 through
1992. The year 1966 was chosen as the starting point because it follows directly on the passage
of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Although the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made no
attempt to ban or regulate felon or ex-felon disenfranchisement, it signaled to states an important
change in the normative and legal environment (Edelman 1990), one in which political
subordination based on race or status would no longer be deemed legitimate.
In the dataset, each state-year represents one observation. For the analysis, the outcome
of interest is whether a state in a given year liberalized its voting laws to extend voting rights to a
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previously disenfranchised class of felons or ex-felons. This change is captured in a binary
variable. If a state-year witnessed a liberalization, it received a value of one. Otherwise, it
received a value of zero. Liberalization events are taken from Yoshinaka and Grose (2005: Table
1, page 53). This variable treats as equivalent states that enfranchise incarcerated felons (e.g.,
Maine in 1975) and states that enfranchise ex-felons who have completed their sentence (e.g.,
Idaho in 1972).4 This approach is consistent with that taken by existing liberalization analyses
(Yoshinaka and Grose 2005; Behrens, Uggen, and Manza 2003). Conceptually, the measure
indicates that a state has or has not met some minimum threshold for extending voting rights to
some class of convicted felons.5 Table 1 lists states and years of re-enfranchisement events from
1966 to 1992.
[TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE.]
4
Maine is the only state in the dataset to change policy to enfranchise imprisoned felons. One
may argue that this action is qualitatively different from enfranchising ex-felons, probationers, or
parolees by citing low levels of public support for prisoner voting rights (Manza and Uggen
2006: Ch. 9) and the fact that non-prisoners live among the general public. I remain agnostic on
this point, and simply note the empirical fact that removing Maine from the analyses does not
change any of the results that follow.
5
A more complex approach to the analysis might create a multinomial dependent variable based
on each of the four categories of potential enfranchisees (prisoners, parolees, probationers, and
ex-felons). However, this approach would create extreme sparseness in the data and make
subsequent statistical analysis unfeasible. Because any combination of the four felon categories
could be enfranchised (except the combination in which none are enfranchised), the possible
outcomes to be captured by the multinomial dependent variable would number 15 (=42-1), with
only 27 re-enfranchisement events in the time period.
11
I gauge Democratic control of government (Hypothesis 1) using an indicator variable,
DEM UNITY. For any given state-year, it is equal to one if Democrats hold a majority in both
state legislative chambers and control the governorship; otherwise it is equal to zero.6 Data come
from Berry et al. (No Date). In order to test Hypothesis 2 (on the differential effect of
imprisonment rates or, alternatively, differential effect of Democratic support), I create an
interaction variable, DEM*PRISON, which multiplies DEM UNITY and PRISON RATE.
PRISON RATE is a state’s imprisonment rate, which divides the number of prisoners in a state by
the state’s population (x100,000). Imprisonment figures were compiled from various editions of
the Statistical Abstract of the United States (U.S. Census Bureau Various years).7 I used linear
interpolation to fill in missing state-year values as needed. State population figures are from the
Bureau of Economic Analysis (2008). The interaction term, DEM*PRISON, allows the effect of
imprisonment rates to differ depending on whether Democrats control the state government. Or,
said differently, it allows the effect of Democratic control of the government to vary depending
on the current level of imprisonment in the state.
The LIBERALISM variable, which measures the ideology of a state’s citizens, comes
from Berry et al. (1998; No Date) and is used to assess whether states with liberal citizens were
more likely to re-enfranchise, net of party strength (Hypothesis 3). The variable is based on
6
Two states had non-partisan legislatures: Minnesota (through 1973) and Nebraska (through the
entire period). When these states had a Republican governor, I coded DEM UNITY as equal to
zero, since this made a unified Democratic government impossible. When these states had a
Democratic governor, I coded DEM UNITY as missing, which removed those state-years from
the analysis. Omitting these states from the analysis entirely does not affect the results below.
7
Most states provided jurisdictional counts of prisoners. However, eleven states provided
custodial counts for some (at most, eight) years.
12
interest group ratings of Congressional candidates, weighted by the vote shares of Congressional
candidates (a measure of citizen support) and aggregated to the state level. Values range from 0
to 100, with higher values indicating greater policy liberalism. This measure has successfully
been used to predict various state-level outcomes, including welfare expenditures, Medicaid
funding for abortion, tax system progressivity, and incarceration rates (Berry et al. 1998).
To examine Hypothesis 4, I created a measure of racial disparity in imprisonment
(PRISON DISPARITY) by dividing a state’s black incarceration rate by white incarceration rate to
form a ratio. Each state’s race-specific incarceration rate is simply the number of black or white
incarcerated residents divided by the number of black or white residents. Decennial figures for
incarcerated populations by race come from Census publications (U.S. Census Bureau 1963,
1973, 1984, 1990, 2000), and they include persons in federal and state prisons and jails. I used
linear interpolation to fill in intercensal years and any other missing values.8 Data on total state
populations by race come from the Census Bureau (2009) and Gibson and Jung (2002), with
linear interpolation used to fill in any missing years. In addition to these substantive explanatory
variables, I incorporate relevant control variables that may confound the hypotheses. SOUTH is
an indicator variable that equals one for any Southern state.9 The variable BW RATIO is the ratio
8
The 1960 data source referred to “non-white” populations in institutions, which is not
comparable with later categories (“Negro” [1970], “Black” [1980 and1990], or “Black alone”
[2000]). Rather than using the “non-white” figures, I extrapolated numbers for the 1960’s based
on the linear trend from the two closest non-missing values. This caused some states to have
fewer than zero black residents incarcerated. I recoded these to be zero.
9
Southern states are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia,
and West Virginia.
13
of black residents to white residents in a state for a given year (Gibson and Jung 2002; U.S.
Census Bureau 2009).
Using these annual data on re-enfranchisement events, I conduct a discrete-time logistic
event history analysis. Event history analysis is well suited to research that investigates event
occurrence and the factors that may explain it. This statistical approach is able to accommodate
time-varying covariates and cases in which the event of interest may occur after the period in
which data collection occurred (i.e., when the event is right-censored) (Allison 1982; Allison
1984; Box-Steffensmeier and Jones 2004; Singer and Willett 2003). Event history analysis also
allows one to model a time trend for the hazard of re-enfranchisement, which assumes that these
events are more or less likely to occur at different points in time, net of any substantive
explanatory factors. This time trend serves as a proxy for a secular trend in states’ propensity to
re-enfranchise, which is only observed in reference to re-enfranchisement events themselves. I
model this unobserved time trend in the hazard using a quadratic form, which allows the hazard
to first increase and then decrease over time. In comparisons of AIC scores, this quadratic time
trend fits the data better than various other trends (Singer and Willett 2003).
RESULTS
Table 2 presents summary statistics for all available state-years used in the analysis for
years 1966 and 1992. In 1966, half of states were controlled by Democrats, but this share fell to
under one third in 1992. Imprisonment rates, on the other hand, displayed enormous growth, with
the mean more than tripling in this period. Despite the decline in Democratic control, states’
citizens became increasingly liberal during this period, with mean liberalism scores rising from
roughly 40 to 54. Black-white disparities in imprisonment increased from nearly 6:1 to more
14
than 8:1 between 1966 and 1992. The ratio of blacks to whites in the population changed little in
this period, moving from 0.11 to 0.13. Southern states constituted roughly one third of states.
[TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE.]
Table 3 shows results from two discrete-time event history analyses. For each model, the
dependent variable is a change in state law to enfranchise a group of felon or ex-felon voters that
were previously denied the right to vote. The analyses model only the first such reenfranchisement after 1965, and therefore the dataset omits all observations on a state after it has
liberalized. States that never liberalized from 1966 through 1992 (i.e., that were right-censored)
remain in the dataset for all observation periods. Coefficients are displayed as odds ratios
(labeled “OR”) and, for significant substantive variables, the odds ratios of a one-standard
deviation change in the explanatory variable (in columns labeled “OR StdX”).
[TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE.]
Model 1 indicates a positive association between unified Democratic state governments
and re-enfranchisement, supporting Hypothesis 1. In fact, the odds of re-enfranchisement
increased by a factor of 2.7 when a state government was controlled by Democrats. Independent
of the balance of partisan power in government, states with liberal citizens were also more likely
to re-enfranchise, in support of Hypothesis 3. A difference of one standard deviation in citizen
liberalism increased the odds of liberalizing by roughly 80 percent (see the 1.81 in the “OR
StdX” column). This is an unexpected finding, as previous analyses have either omitted
ideology from their consideration (Behrens et al. 2003) or failed to find an association with reenfranchisement (Yoshinaka and Grose 2005). States with high racial disparities in
imprisonment were less likely to enfranchise (hypothesis 4), with a one standard deviation
increase cutting the odds of re-enfranchisement in half. The association between racial
15
imprisonment patterns and felon voting rights is in line with previous research (Behrens et al.
2003), although the present analysis suggests that it may have been less relevant to reenfranchisement than Democratic power and the ideological context of the public. No control
variables are statistically significant in Model 1: black-to-white population ratios, Southern
states, and imprisonment rates were unrelated to liberalization, net of other variables. The time
trend coefficients indicate an unobserved hazard that first increases through 1976 then decreases
(calculations not shown).
Model 2 tests the conditional nature of Democratic support for re-enfranchisement,
Hypothesis 2. This hypothesis posits that Democrat-unified states were more likely to reenfranchise, but that this tendency (and Democratic incentives) to re-enfranchise was mitigated
where and when they could expect a minimal electoral benefit (i.e., where and when fewer felons
existed to be enfranchised). Model 2 offers no support for this hypothesis. Neither the
interaction term (DEM*PRISON) nor its constituent variables (DEM UNITY and PRISON RATE)
16
are statistically significant.10 Notably, though, citizen liberalism and racial disparities in prison
are unaffected by including the interaction term.11
The findings for Democratic unity, citizen liberalism, and racial disparities in prison are
robust to alternative model specifications. All results are essentially unchanged with a constant
hazard specification; with a curvilinear measure of black-to-white population ratio included (see
Preuhs 2001); or with the inclusion of states’ two-party presidential vote shares, a measure of
party popularity (see Yoshinaka and Grose 2005).
DISCUSSION
The analysis supports some previous findings while also offering some new insights. Reenfranchisement required governmental action, and in this crucial arena Democrats took the lead
(Conn 2005; Yoshinaka and Grose 2005). When Democrats controlled a state’s legislature and
the governorship, the odds of re-enfranchisement more than doubled. Why did Democrats
10
This null result may be due to the high correlation between Democratic unity and the
interaction term, which ranges from 0.80 to 0.95 for the years considered here. Using a centered
version of imprisonment rates (around the grand mean) reduced this correlation, but the
interaction term remained non-significant. Additionally, I ran separate analyses for state-years
with and without unified Democratic governments to assess a differential effect of imprisonment
rates on Democratic support for liberalization. When using a quadratic time specification,
imprisonment rates were positively and significantly related to re-enfranchisement for Democratunified states and the association was non-significant for other states. This, finding, however,
was sensitive to model specification; it disappeared when the quadratic time trend was removed.
11
I also ran models interacting citizen liberalism with Democratic unity in state government, on
the belief that Democrats—but not Republicans—might be sensitive to ideological
predispositions of citizens. This interaction term was not significant.
17
support re-enfranchisement? I find no evidence that their support was a product of crass partisan
strategizing aimed at creating new Democratic voters. Importantly, Democratic support for reenfranchisement did not appear to be calibrated to the expected electoral payout (i.e., the size of
the felon pool in the state). This finding should not be taken as a claim that Democratic
politicians were not strategic actors. Rather, the null finding more likely indicates that
Democrats expected that re-enfranchisement would only provide negligible additions to the
ranks of Democratic voters.
Unlike in previous analyses, ideology appears to have been a highly important contextual
factor in re-enfranchisement. Its coefficient was consistently significant and consistently the
largest of the variables analyzed here (when considering the standardized odds ratios in Table 3).
This finding is novel. Only one previous analysis has considered the role of ideological context
in re-enfranchisement and it found the relationship to be non-significant for the years 1960
through 1999 (Yoshinaka and Grose 2005). The two analyses differed in the time periods
examined, modeling choices (the earlier study allowed multiple liberalizations per state and did
not explicitly model time), and use of control variables. The findings from the present analysis,
though, stand on their own. The relationship between citizen liberalism and re-enfranchisement,
for roughly 25 years following the Voting Rights Act of 1965, appears consistently across various
model specifications and inclusion of various control variables. This offers strong evidence that
liberal ideology among citizens played an important role in restoring voting rights to felons and
ex-felons during this time period. Substantively, the finding is in line with research relating
citizens’ ideology to the provision or denial of rights for other stigmatized groups in the U.S.,
such as recent immigrants (Chavez and Provine 2009) and lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (Pappas,
Mendez, and Herrick 2009).
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Citizen ideology served as an important backdrop to any consideration of reenfranchisement, and it was relevant to both Republicans and Democrats. Ideology could
provide a permissive environment for split or Republic governments to re-enfranchise, but it
could also dampen liberalizing impulses of Democrats. We can see these dynamics in particular
examples. Re-enfranchisement did occur on the watch of Republicans, both in divided
governments (e.g., Washington in 1984) and in Republican-controlled governments (e.g., New
York in 1973). In such cases, the prevailing contextual factors served to encourage reenfranchisement regardless of the party in power. (Washington, in 1984, and New York, in 1973,
had higher than average scores on the citizen liberalism measure). At the same time, unified
Democratic governments did not automatically re-enfranchise when they gained power. Their
actions were situated in a larger ideological context. When that context was not hospitable,
Democrats were less likely to push through liberalizing legislation. For example, Democrats
regained control of the state government in New Mexico in 1971 and in Arkansas in 1983, but in
neither case did they re-enfranchise (in that year or any other). This fact begins to make sense
when we recognize that these states had citizen ideology scores that were more conservative than
average. These findings show that citizen liberalism was not simply a reflection of the political
party in power, as both parties appear to have been sensitive to it (see footnote 11 above).
An additional contextual factor that constrained liberalization (by actors in both parties)
was the local pattern of racial domination in a state. Where and when blacks were
disproportionately imprisoned (relative to whites), state governments were significantly less
likely to extend voting rights. This confirms previous work by Behrens, Uggen, and Manza
(2003) and offers additional evidence that American democratic policy remained influenced by
patterns of racial subordination in the late 20th century (also see Preuhs 2001).
19
This analysis points to the largely neglected role of ideological context in restoring exfelon voting rights. It suggests that, although Democrats may have been associated with reenfranchisement during this period, their support was not based on expectations of gaining new
electoral support. Instead, Democratic governments (but also Republican and split ones) were
constrained by prevailing contexts. Racial domination served as one significant contextual
factor. But perhaps more importantly, would-be reformers were bound by the ideological context
of the state. Thus, re-enfranchisement should not be viewed as a product of electoral
manipulation. Rather, it is best seen as resulting from a convergence of
permissive ideological (and racial) contexts and government officials—most likely Democrats,
but also Republicans—willing to extend voting rights.
20
FIGURES
Table 1: State and Year of Re-Enfranchisement Events, 1966-1992 a
State
Year
State
Year
State
Year
South Dakota
1967
Montana
1973
Oregon
1975
Hawaii
1968
North Dakota
1973
Oklahoma
1976
Louisiana
1968
Nevada
1973
Arizona
1978
Pennsylvania
1968
New York
1973
South Carolina
1981
Kansas
1969
Rhode Island
1973
Georgia
1983
Illinois
1970
California
1974
Texas
1983
North Carolina
1971
Ohio
1974
Washington
1984
Idaho
1972
Connecticut
1975
Alabama
1986
Florida
1973
Maine
1975
Tennessee
1986
Note: The following states did not have a re-enfranchisement event from 1966 to 1992: Alaska,
Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Virginia,
Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Three states allowed all felons to vote throughout this
time period, and were therefore not at risk: Massachusetts, Utah, and Vermont.
a
: The events listed here refer to the first re-enfranchisement event post-1965.
21
Table 2: Summary Statistics for Independent Variables, 1966 and 1992
1966
Variable
Mean
S.D.
N
Mean
DEM UNITYa
0.50
0.51
48
0.29
1992
S.D.
N
0.46
49
PRISON RATEb
85.63
29.15
49
285.16
118.75
50
LIBERALISM
39.62
19.80
50
54.14
11.76
50
PRISON DISPARITY
5.78
4.18
50
8.06
3.57
50
BW RATIO
0.11
0.14
50
0.13
0.14
50
SOUTH
0.32
0.47
50
0.32
0.47
50
a
: N = 48 in 1966 because Minnesota and Nebraska had non-partisan legislatures. N=49 in 1992
because Nebraska had a non-partisan legislature.
b
: N = 49 in 1966 due to missing data for Alaska.
22
Table 3: Discrete-Time Event History Models of Re-Enfranchisement, 1966-1992
1
2
OR
DEM UNITY
LIBERALISM
PRISON DISPARITY
BW RATIO
SOUTH
PRISON RATE (per
100,000)
DEM*PRISON
TIME (year 1966=1)
TIME^2
CONSTANT
Log Likelihood
p
N
OR
2.700*
1.037**
0.852*
1.165
0.424
[z]
[2.122]
[2.505]
[-2.326]
[0.066]
[-1.280]
1.004
[0.885]
1.371**
0.985**
0.004**
-106.073
0.004
[2.339]
[-2.492]
[-4.981]
779
StdX
1.62
1.81
0.52
OR
0.902
1.034*
0.862*
0.432
0.34
[z]
[-0.124]
[2.307]
[-2.162]
[-0.320]
[-1.482]
1.001
1.011
1.377*
0.984**
0.007**
-104.639
0.003
[0.098]
[1.567]
[2.395]
[-2.658]
[-4.274]
779
* p<0.05, ** p<0.01 (one-tailed tests)
Note: "OR" columns present estimated odds ratios for one-unit change in variable. "[Z]"
columns present z-scores. "OR StdX" columns present estimated change in odds for one
standard deviation change in variable.
23
OR
StdX
1.725
0.546
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