Cierra Newman

Another View contributor

In the wake of COVID-19, the Iowa Legislature has never suspended lawmaking— not for war, natural disaster nor global health emergency — until now. Upon lawmakers' return — as the only state in the nation with a lifetime ban on voting for people with a felony conviction — they are set to cast one of the most consequential votes in the nation’s history. During a time of social distancing and self-quarantine, perhaps the Legislature will be moved to self-reflect and ask: Why is it that in Iowa, before 1868, my forefathers could not vote, and more than 150 years later, neither can my father?

To understand why Iowa is the only state in the nation with a lifetime ban on voting for people with a felony conviction — a punishment that disproportionately affects African-Americans — we must first examine and then wrestle with Iowa’s profound history of suppressing virtually every right of its African-American citizens.

Only then can we better understand that the Legislature’s attempt in 2020 to silence the voices of Iowa’s most marginalized groups began well over 150 years ago.

The insurmountable challenges of securing civil and political rights for African-Americans in Iowa preceded our statehood. The Territorial Legislature of Iowa made its first attempt at suppressing the rights of African-Americans beginning in 1838, when the Legislature required that all African-Americans entering Iowa after April 1, 1839, produce a "certificate of freedom" and post a $500 bond.

The Legislature would soon make another successful attempt at suppressing the rights of its African-American citizens on Jan. 6, 1840, when Iowa passed a law prohibiting interracial marriage, followed by its rejection of African-American voting rights in 1844, and again in 1845. Soon thereafter, the Legislature would strip virtually every right left to African-Americans, namely barring African-Americans from holding office in the Iowa General Assembly, serving in the military and testifying in court. And by 1851, the Legislature passed a law prohibiting the immigration of African-Americans to the state.

By 1857, the Iowa Legislature would reconsider whether to grant voting rights to African-Americans by allowing citizens to cast a ballot to decide whether to strike the word “white” from the Iowa Constitution. The citizens weighed in; African-Americans were again refused the right to vote. It was not until more than a decade later, in 1868, that the Iowa Legislature would eliminate the word “white” from the Iowa Constitution, finally granting the right to vote to African-American men.

Today, more than 150 years later, the Iowa Legislature is repeating history. In a measure reminiscent of the 1838 certificate of freedom and bond, the 2020 Iowa Senate File 2129 requires those with a felony conviction — convictions that disproportionately affect African-American citizens — to produce a "certificate of restoration of rights" and pay every cent of any restitution they might owe in order to have their voting rights restored. The legislation — as in 1838 — has effectively tied one’s rights to the ability to repay.

Many Iowans don’t fully repay restitution. Where I am from, an overwhelming majority of people charged with a non-violent crime are so poor that they cannot afford a lawyer, let alone payment in restitution for the crimes they committed. Penalizing a person for the same crime twice — otherwise known as double jeopardy — is illegal. Yet, in effect, Senate File 2129 mutes and suppresses African-Americans from meaningful participation in democracy, unreasonably restricts their constitutional right to vote and imposes unrealistic requirements for people with felony convictions to surmount arbitrary statutory barriers — even after having paid their mandated societal debt. Today, just as in 1838, Iowa has tied ones rights to their ability to pay.

In a state that disproportionately jails its African-American citizens, where African-Americans make up less than 4% of the population but 25% of its prison population, tying the right to vote to our injustice system — a system that, at its inception, did not consider African-Americans in the calculus of persons worthy of citizenship, rights or decency — further disenfranchises African-Americans, and by its very design, makes Iowa’s voting base overwhelmingly white..

As a young girl who grew up with an incarcerated father, I felt the effects of his absence. From missed basketball games and cello recitals to the financial burden placed on my mother, I experienced firsthand the challenges that awaited him long after serving his time and re-entering his community. My father’s struggle to obtain full citizenship rights after incarceration is in part why I became an attorney. My father, just like his forefathers, cannot vote.

As an African-American woman attorney, I fight because it was the African-American citizens of Iowa who fought to make the words of the Iowa Constitution true, especially the part about all people being free and equal. The 2020 Legislature could certainly learn something from the 1868 Iowa Legislature, in a moment of self-reflection. Perhaps that might move lawmakers to ask themselves: Why is it that in Iowa, before 1868, my forefathers could not vote, and more than 150 years later, neither can my father?

While the question is rhetorical, I hope the answer makes the people of Iowa want to run. Not for the hills, but for office.

Cierra Newman is an attorney in Washington, D.C. She is a fourth-generation Iowan who previously served as an aide to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and as an attorney-adviser to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau of the U.S. Treasury. The views and opinions expressed in this essay are her own.