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Speaker 1: Hey, Michael Steele podcast listeners. Michael Steele here with another

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quick take from the Michael Steel Podcast. Check out what's

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going on right now. Welcome back everybody to Michael Steel Podcast.

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So if you haven't been able to get your vote on,

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we've got the folks that can help you do that.

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Whether you are a felon who's working his or her

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way back into society and paying all the damn fees,

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or you're a person with disabilities is trying to figure

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out how you're going to access the ballot box with

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someone who's just got the call to work overseas, or

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you're actually serving overseas. We've got some wonderful guests here

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to help us walk through it. So welcome back. Lewis, Michelle,

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and Susan. What is the current state of things from

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each of your perspectives five months out and I'll start.

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I'll start with you, Lewis, in terms of where you

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have states that where you have obviously felons who have

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serious crimes rape, murder, they're likely not granted their right

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to vote again. But otherwise that that space is available.

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I mean, it's a more open space for a felon.

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Despite some of the difficulties we talked about. Are there

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states that are coming online that are more and more

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green lighting, Uh, not just the return to society for

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for felons, but their full constitutional ability to vote in

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that society.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think that the you know, a larger question here

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is that I don't think that we can cheery pick offenses.

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I think that the moment that we get into cheery

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picking more serious offenses or convictions versus less serious convictions,

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we run into a very very nuanced gray area as

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to those people can have it, but these people can't.

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And if we're going to we're going to re enfranchise

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people who are justice impacted. Number one, we need to

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humanize the experiences of people who are incarcerated. Let me

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let me say this, Michael. In the fourteen years that

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I was incarcerated, I never met a felon. I never

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met an inmate, I never met an ex con. I

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met brothers, uncles, aunties, cousins, baby mama's baby, baby daddy's right,

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the coloquial.

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Speaker 1: Term you met everybody.

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Speaker 2: I met anybody, heybody right. But the one thing that

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I never met, I never met.

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Speaker 3: I never met the pejorative that the system assigned to

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us UH in terms of, you know, felling the labels

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that they assigned to us.

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Speaker 2: And so I think that.

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Speaker 3: Number one, we need to recondition ourselves as to understanding

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that the people who are justice impacted in our communities

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are now a part of our communities. So now that

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we are here, how do we effectively help them reintegrate

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into our communities? Which is a conversation for another episode,

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but but specifically around around you know, voting re enfranchisement.

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How can we in effect espouse the founding principles of

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this country dignity, equality, and justice, not for some people,

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not for the affluent and Greenwich, Connecticut, or not for

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the UH those who are impoverished in Compton, California, but

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for all people in the United States of America. If

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you have served your time in this country, if you

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are you don't even have to be a tax paying citizen.

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If you are a citizen of the United States of America,

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then there is nothing that should lock you out of

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the ballot box after you have been locked up in

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an institution. And so there are initiatives, you know, via

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states that are making strides, interestingly enough, Vermont and Maine

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that I think demographically it's and arguable that right that

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they don't necessarily look.

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Speaker 1: Like right exactly, that.

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Speaker 2: Looks like where I come from. Right, they're super progressive.

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Speaker 3: They allow people who are incarcerated to vote while they're

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while they are incarcerated. And so I think that what

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we should be doing is we should be looking at

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people who are American citizens as as such. And I'm

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also glad, I'll say this just as a PS as well.

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I'm also glad that and I'm not happy. I'm not

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reveling in the fact that the former president is.

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Speaker 1: Now in this uh, in this situation, in this.

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Speaker 3: Situation, but I am glad that it's raising the conversation

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and it's now raising the consciousness because the same.

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Speaker 2: Parties that locked people like Lewis l Reed out.

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Speaker 3: Of the vote is now have they now have to

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reconsider now that you have the former president.

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Speaker 1: Being convicted selling right now in the fraternity, in the fraternity.

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I bet you he never thought he'd be in that fraternity.

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Speaker 3: He's now in the fraternity of folks like folks like

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me and my cousins and the people that I was

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incarcerated with.

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Speaker 2: Now, what are we going to do? Now?

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Speaker 3: It's not an issue of they versus us. Now it's

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we have a problem. Now, how are we going to

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unlock these opportunities for all Americans not necessarily making this

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exclusive for some Americans? And so I'm glad that we're

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having this conversation that that.

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Speaker 1: Raises an interesting point though, because you know, unlike the

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work that that Susan does, where not only does she

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have a blindfold on, but she has ear plugs in

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and her hands tied behind her back when it comes

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to party identification and party ballot access Republican versus Democrat.

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But in your space, what you find is there is

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and you touched on it a little bit, there is

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this other element that drives it. So, for example, when

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you're looking at the resistance to allowing felons to regain

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their constitutional right to vote, statistics shows that felons are

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four times as likely as non felons to be Democrats

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and or politically unaffiliated, and roughly only twenty percent of

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those felons will identify themselves as Republicans. So, given the

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partisan fueled environment that we're in, a lot of what's

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driving this anti felon reintegration into the full capacity of

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citizenship is the fact that oh, well, we just don't

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need more Democrats. And you've heard in the past in

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places like Florida, for example, in a few other states

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where they specifically identify that as a reason not to

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engage on this subject because it will basically allow more

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Democrats on the voting roles than Republicans. Not only is

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that just a full out bs argument, because at the

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end of the day, you just don't know how someone

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is going to register and why should you care. That's

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something that gets played out at the ballot box. I

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know a lot of Republicans vote Democrat and a lot

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of Democrats will vote Republicans. So party affiliation and registration

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for me, as a former party official, never really meant

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that much, which is why I'll always emphasize the value

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of the message, the value of the policies we're offering.

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But that does shape your landscape a lot in terms

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of the work you're doing, because you have that obstacle

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where people are laying on top of not only the

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criminal conviction, but now the assumption of party affiliation that

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drives their ability to engage or not engage on this issue.

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Speaker 3: Michael, let me just quote Wesley Snipes in New jack City,

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this is bigger than you no Brown, right, right, this

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is bigger than you no Brown. And we probably have

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to go into about several bonus episodes in order to

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get nuanced and idiosyncrasies around party affiliation in all of

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those complexities there. But it's it's exactly what it is

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that you said. Look, let me also say this as well.

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I've realized that you know, Chris Use in this country

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doing criminal justice reform, trying to create a pathway to

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freedom for folks who are justice impacted. I realize that

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Republicans at their best believe in liberty, and Democrats at

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their best, believe in justice. And all of us, as Americans,

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at our best, should believe in liberty and justice for

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all people, which includes those who are overseas, which includes

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those who are disabled, which includes those who are in

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a justice impacted category, all American citizens.

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Speaker 2: That's what we should be. Believe in liberty and justice.

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Speaker 3: We cannot have liberty if we are not voting, and

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then we cannot have justice if we are not voting

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for all people.

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Speaker 1: That is I'm just going to let that sit there marinate,

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because that's exactly the point. And Michelle, in the disability space,

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you don't run into the party affiliation issue that you

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see with the work that Lewis is doing, but you

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have those other issues that we talked about that create

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those lanes that go to dead ends. What are you

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seeing out there now in terms of its we're getting

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ready for this upcoming election. What are states doing to

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create greater accessibility? You talked up a little bit about

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you know, you know, when you go up to a precinct,

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what is a disabled person likely to be greeted with

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and how is their access being considered five months out.

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Speaker 4: It's a great question as we're sort of charging whether

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or not we're ready into a major election. And I

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do think that access is improving. It's very slow, it's

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far too slow, but it is slowly but steadily moving

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in the right direction. I think the further we get

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into this election. And one of the things that really

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concerns me these days is that I think that we

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fail to include people with disabilities in the electoral process

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in a meaningful way. Even if we made all our

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polling places fully accessible, and we had fantastic technology in

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the polling place for folks to use to cast their

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ballots if they need it, and we solved all these

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accessibility problems, and we had fantastic poll workers who were

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ready to provide accommodation to people with disabilities. All of

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it is meaningless if people with disabilities don't show up

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to cast their ballots. And people with disabilities are, as

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you said, one of those forgotten communities. And part of

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that is that candidates and campaigns and parties don't talk

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about us, or think about us or see us, and

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we're not included in their platforms and they're not talking

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to us and they're not talking about us, and people

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with disabilities feel very much that they're excluded from democracy

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right talking about liberty and justice for all, we're not

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a part of that process. And so people with disabilities

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have to feel like their vote has meaning, that there's

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a purpose, that it matters who gets elected because that

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person will see them and think about them and what

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it is that is liberty and justice for people with

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disabilities to be able to live and work and have

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meaningful lives in our communities. And I think that's where

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where we're really failing right now. Access is one thing,

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but access having meaning is another thing entirely, and we

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really fail to integrate people with disabilities into community life

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and into the democratic process in a really meaningful way.

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Speaker 1: That's well said. It's beautiful point, because there's so much

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you're so right. I'm thinking back now, you know, when

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I was a county chairman and here in Prince George's

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you're absolutely right, and I'll raise my hand and go

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my bad because we did not give much consideration. You're right,

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much consideration to the disabled in the sense that and

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here's the thing, to be very honest about it. When

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someone says disabled, what's the image that pops up in

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your head. I bet you, I bet you nine times

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out attended someone in a wheelchair.

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Speaker 2: Wheelchair. Yeah, that's what that's that's what's happened to me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: It's also frequently a white man in a wheelchair, a.

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Speaker 1: White man in a wheelchair, and and and we don't

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think about the other ways in which someone is disabled,

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which means they're unable to do the thing that you're

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doing and that you take for granted. And that is

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I think that's such a profoundly important point because a

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lot of it goes to as we as we spoke

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with the idea of the felon and how that part

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needs to change. How we visualize that that Lewis was

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talking about, the same is true in this space. How

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do we visualize the disabled? And if you just think

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it's a white man in a wheelchair, then the individual

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who is an African American who's blind is gonna have

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a problem. Or the the you know, the mom who

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has other disabling situations, it's gonna have a problem. So

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that's an important piece in order to fill out what

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we're talking about here. Hey, everybody, thanks so much for

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listening today. Please go to Apple Podcasts and give us

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a five star review. Hey, give us two five star reviews.

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I love it. Or catch us on stitch your iHeart,

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tune in or wherever you get that podcast thing on.

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You know how that goes. Peace out,