When one of the very few good Florida policies go south...and fast.
The St. Petersburg Times, 2/25/2011:
(...)
"I don't believe that any felon should have an automatic restoration of rights," said Bondi, a former Tampa prosecutor elected in November. "I believe you should have to ask, and there should be an appropriate waiting period."
Bondi's proposal, set to be formally discussed at a March 9 Cabinet meeting, would reverse a major change that took place in April 2007 at the urging of former Gov. Charlie Crist, who said the civil rights restoration process in Florida was too cumbersome and cruel to many ex-offenders.
(...)
Bondi outlined her proposal abruptly at the end of the first meeting of a revamped Board of Clemency, at which officials showed a general reluctance to grant pardons or civil rights restorations, even in cases in which the Parole Commission staff recommended they be granted.
In more than a dozen cases, Scott said: "I deny the application." He said later: "The decisions today were very difficult to make."
Poor baby. Being governor is sooo hard.
According to one commenter to the St. Pete post, what Bondi suggests hurls the state back to a policy that dates back to just after the Civil War.
More than 100,000 Florida applicants await review of clemency applications.
Bondi's recommendation appears to be what those in the private sector would call an immediate reducer of the workload. It's backward, narrow and unfair and would likely be overturned in federal court.
(Here's an idea. Wouldn't it be just as timely to automatically restore civil rights as allowable by law? (Read more about who can make application here).
All this prehistoric nonsense from a woman who tied up the court system in attempt to hang on to a dog that was rightfully owned by a couple of Louisiana kids.
Woof.
