The Iowa House passed a constitutional amendment to give some felons’ their right back to vote.

House District 20 Representative Ray Sorensen tells Raccoon Valley Radio the House unanimously passed two pieces of legislation related to the constitutional amendment that establishes a legal process to give some felons’ back their right to vote. 

“We just look at it as: we want people to pay their debt to society, but once that’s been paid be able to earn their life back. It’s always been an important thing in the House and hopefully it’ll gain some traction in the Senate and get to the governor’s desk.”

Sorensen says part of the bill outlines those felons that will never get their voting rights back. Currently, felons that appeal to the governor once they have been released from prison is to have their voting rights reinstated and Sorensen talks about why he wants to push this legislation through as quickly as the process will allow.

“The governor has in place basically, a ‘Shall issue your rights back.’ So the sooner that we can get those boundaries in place, the more comfortable Iowans will be with felons getting their rights back. We don’t want some triple homicide child killer being able to vote again and right now that stands as a possibility. But with our bill there’s obviously some constraints on that.”

Because it is a constitutional amendment, the bill would need to pass not only this general assembly, but the next one before it goes to the vote of the people of Iowa. Iowa is currently one of only two states without a legal system in place for felons to get their voting rights back.