Speaker 1: Hey, Michael Steele podcast listeners. Michael Steele here with another
quick take from the Michael Steel Podcast. Check out what's
going on right now. Welcome back everybody to Michael Steel Podcast.
So if you haven't been able to get your vote on,
we've got the folks that can help you do that.
Whether you are a felon who's working his or her
way back into society and paying all the damn fees,
or you're a person with disabilities is trying to figure
out how you're going to access the ballot box with
someone who's just got the call to work overseas, or
you're actually serving overseas. We've got some wonderful guests here
to help us walk through it. So welcome back. Lewis, Michelle,
and Susan. What is the current state of things from
each of your perspectives five months out and I'll start.
I'll start with you, Lewis, in terms of where you
have states that where you have obviously felons who have
serious crimes rape, murder, they're likely not granted their right
to vote again. But otherwise that that space is available.
I mean, it's a more open space for a felon.
Despite some of the difficulties we talked about. Are there
states that are coming online that are more and more
green lighting, Uh, not just the return to society for
for felons, but their full constitutional ability to vote in
that society.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that the you know, a larger question here
is that I don't think that we can cheery pick offenses.
I think that the moment that we get into cheery
picking more serious offenses or convictions versus less serious convictions,
we run into a very very nuanced gray area as
to those people can have it, but these people can't.
And if we're going to we're going to re enfranchise
people who are justice impacted. Number one, we need to
humanize the experiences of people who are incarcerated. Let me
let me say this, Michael. In the fourteen years that
I was incarcerated, I never met a felon. I never
met an inmate, I never met an ex con. I
met brothers, uncles, aunties, cousins, baby mama's baby, baby daddy's right,
the coloquial.
Speaker 1: Term you met everybody.
Speaker 2: I met anybody, heybody right. But the one thing that
I never met, I never met.
Speaker 3: I never met the pejorative that the system assigned to
us UH in terms of, you know, felling the labels
that they assigned to us.
Speaker 2: And so I think that.
Speaker 3: Number one, we need to recondition ourselves as to understanding
that the people who are justice impacted in our communities
are now a part of our communities. So now that
we are here, how do we effectively help them reintegrate
into our communities? Which is a conversation for another episode,
but but specifically around around you know, voting re enfranchisement.
How can we in effect espouse the founding principles of
this country dignity, equality, and justice, not for some people,
not for the affluent and Greenwich, Connecticut, or not for
the UH those who are impoverished in Compton, California, but
for all people in the United States of America. If
you have served your time in this country, if you
are you don't even have to be a tax paying citizen.
If you are a citizen of the United States of America,
then there is nothing that should lock you out of
the ballot box after you have been locked up in
an institution. And so there are initiatives, you know, via
states that are making strides, interestingly enough, Vermont and Maine
that I think demographically it's and arguable that right that
they don't necessarily look.
Speaker 1: Like right exactly, that.
Speaker 2: Looks like where I come from. Right, they're super progressive.
Speaker 3: They allow people who are incarcerated to vote while they're
while they are incarcerated. And so I think that what
we should be doing is we should be looking at
people who are American citizens as as such. And I'm
also glad, I'll say this just as a PS as well.
I'm also glad that and I'm not happy. I'm not
reveling in the fact that the former president is.
Speaker 1: Now in this uh, in this situation, in this.
Speaker 3: Situation, but I am glad that it's raising the conversation
and it's now raising the consciousness because the same.
Speaker 2: Parties that locked people like Lewis l Reed out.
Speaker 3: Of the vote is now have they now have to
reconsider now that you have the former president.
Speaker 1: Being convicted selling right now in the fraternity, in the fraternity.
I bet you he never thought he'd be in that fraternity.
Speaker 3: He's now in the fraternity of folks like folks like
me and my cousins and the people that I was
incarcerated with.
Speaker 2: Now, what are we going to do? Now?
Speaker 3: It's not an issue of they versus us. Now it's
we have a problem. Now, how are we going to
unlock these opportunities for all Americans not necessarily making this
exclusive for some Americans? And so I'm glad that we're
having this conversation that that.
Speaker 1: Raises an interesting point though, because you know, unlike the
work that that Susan does, where not only does she
have a blindfold on, but she has ear plugs in
and her hands tied behind her back when it comes
to party identification and party ballot access Republican versus Democrat.
But in your space, what you find is there is
and you touched on it a little bit, there is
this other element that drives it. So, for example, when
you're looking at the resistance to allowing felons to regain
their constitutional right to vote, statistics shows that felons are
four times as likely as non felons to be Democrats
and or politically unaffiliated, and roughly only twenty percent of
those felons will identify themselves as Republicans. So, given the
partisan fueled environment that we're in, a lot of what's
driving this anti felon reintegration into the full capacity of
citizenship is the fact that oh, well, we just don't
need more Democrats. And you've heard in the past in
places like Florida, for example, in a few other states
where they specifically identify that as a reason not to
engage on this subject because it will basically allow more
Democrats on the voting roles than Republicans. Not only is
that just a full out bs argument, because at the
end of the day, you just don't know how someone
is going to register and why should you care. That's
something that gets played out at the ballot box. I
know a lot of Republicans vote Democrat and a lot
of Democrats will vote Republicans. So party affiliation and registration
for me, as a former party official, never really meant
that much, which is why I'll always emphasize the value
of the message, the value of the policies we're offering.
But that does shape your landscape a lot in terms
of the work you're doing, because you have that obstacle
where people are laying on top of not only the
criminal conviction, but now the assumption of party affiliation that
drives their ability to engage or not engage on this issue.
Speaker 3: Michael, let me just quote Wesley Snipes in New jack City,
this is bigger than you no Brown, right, right, this
is bigger than you no Brown. And we probably have
to go into about several bonus episodes in order to
get nuanced and idiosyncrasies around party affiliation in all of
those complexities there. But it's it's exactly what it is
that you said. Look, let me also say this as well.
I've realized that you know, Chris Use in this country
doing criminal justice reform, trying to create a pathway to
freedom for folks who are justice impacted. I realize that
Republicans at their best believe in liberty, and Democrats at
their best, believe in justice. And all of us, as Americans,
at our best, should believe in liberty and justice for
all people, which includes those who are overseas, which includes
those who are disabled, which includes those who are in
a justice impacted category, all American citizens.
Speaker 2: That's what we should be. Believe in liberty and justice.
Speaker 3: We cannot have liberty if we are not voting, and
then we cannot have justice if we are not voting
for all people.
Speaker 1: That is I'm just going to let that sit there marinate,
because that's exactly the point. And Michelle, in the disability space,
you don't run into the party affiliation issue that you
see with the work that Lewis is doing, but you
have those other issues that we talked about that create
those lanes that go to dead ends. What are you
seeing out there now in terms of its we're getting
ready for this upcoming election. What are states doing to
create greater accessibility? You talked up a little bit about
you know, you know, when you go up to a precinct,
what is a disabled person likely to be greeted with
and how is their access being considered five months out.
Speaker 4: It's a great question as we're sort of charging whether
or not we're ready into a major election. And I
do think that access is improving. It's very slow, it's
far too slow, but it is slowly but steadily moving
in the right direction. I think the further we get
into this election. And one of the things that really
concerns me these days is that I think that we
fail to include people with disabilities in the electoral process
in a meaningful way. Even if we made all our
polling places fully accessible, and we had fantastic technology in
the polling place for folks to use to cast their
ballots if they need it, and we solved all these
accessibility problems, and we had fantastic poll workers who were
ready to provide accommodation to people with disabilities. All of
it is meaningless if people with disabilities don't show up
to cast their ballots. And people with disabilities are, as
you said, one of those forgotten communities. And part of
that is that candidates and campaigns and parties don't talk
about us, or think about us or see us, and
we're not included in their platforms and they're not talking
to us and they're not talking about us, and people
with disabilities feel very much that they're excluded from democracy
right talking about liberty and justice for all, we're not
a part of that process. And so people with disabilities
have to feel like their vote has meaning, that there's
a purpose, that it matters who gets elected because that
person will see them and think about them and what
it is that is liberty and justice for people with
disabilities to be able to live and work and have
meaningful lives in our communities. And I think that's where
where we're really failing right now. Access is one thing,
but access having meaning is another thing entirely, and we
really fail to integrate people with disabilities into community life
and into the democratic process in a really meaningful way.
Speaker 1: That's well said. It's beautiful point, because there's so much
you're so right. I'm thinking back now, you know, when
I was a county chairman and here in Prince George's
you're absolutely right, and I'll raise my hand and go
my bad because we did not give much consideration. You're right,
much consideration to the disabled in the sense that and
here's the thing, to be very honest about it. When
someone says disabled, what's the image that pops up in
your head. I bet you, I bet you nine times
out attended someone in a wheelchair.
Speaker 2: Wheelchair. Yeah, that's what that's that's what's happened to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's also frequently a white man in a wheelchair, a.
Speaker 1: White man in a wheelchair, and and and we don't
think about the other ways in which someone is disabled,
which means they're unable to do the thing that you're
doing and that you take for granted. And that is
I think that's such a profoundly important point because a
lot of it goes to as we as we spoke
with the idea of the felon and how that part
needs to change. How we visualize that that Lewis was
talking about, the same is true in this space. How
do we visualize the disabled? And if you just think
it's a white man in a wheelchair, then the individual
who is an African American who's blind is gonna have
a problem. Or the the you know, the mom who
has other disabling situations, it's gonna have a problem. So
that's an important piece in order to fill out what
we're talking about here. Hey, everybody, thanks so much for
listening today. Please go to Apple Podcasts and give us
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You know how that goes. Peace out,