Republicans take (misguided) aim at Bloomberg for helping Florida felons to vote – FRI 25Sep2020 National and International news

Republicans seek legal action against Bloomberg for helping Florida felons to vote. Democrats prepare bill for Supreme Court term limits. An ugly incident between North and South Korea leads to rare good news… That and more in National & International news.

NATIONAL NEWS

Republicans take (misguided) aim at Bloomberg for helping Florida felons to vote

In 2018, a referendum in Florida paved the way to restore voting rights to some 1.5 million convicts who had served their time. However, the very next year, Florida’s legislature, with the backing of Gov. Ron DeSantis, passed a law barring ex-felons from voting until they had paid all legal court fees and fines. As a result, about 775,000 Floridian felons remain disenfranchised owing to financial burdens connected to their convictions.

Desmond Meade, an ex-con himself, and his organization, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition took up the daunting task of raising  money to help felons pay those costs. Some estimates show that the total fines outstanding for all of Florida’s convicts amount to over $1 billion. Billionaire and former Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg, signed on to the project this week, raising $16 million dollars to restore the voting rights of about 32,000 ex-cons.

In response, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, an outspoken Trump ally, stated that it was a “third degree felony for someone to either directly or indirectly provide something of value to impact whether or not someone votes”. Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody has now called on the FBI to investigate Bloomberg’s actions. This is despite Moody’s team having recently argued before a federal appeals court in defense of the law demanding payment of fines, that others could pay the fines for the felons if they were unable to themselves. That defense, in part, won the judge’s approval for the law to remain in place.

The political equation

President Trump even went so far as to say Bloomberg committed a “criminal act” in paying the fines. Although Republicans seem determined to keep felons from voting, they may be politically shooting themselves in the foot by doing so. University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith suggests there’s no reason to believe that these felons, if allowed to vote, would support Democrats more than Republicans. Although black Floridians, who tend to vote Democrat, have disproportionate representation among the group, the majority of Florida felons with unpaid fines are white.

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Democrats prepare bill to create Supreme Court term limits

California Democratic Congressman Ro Khana is preparing to introduce a bill that would set an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court Justices. The bill attempts to reduce partisan rancor surrounding Supreme Court appointments and preserve the court’s legitimacy. “It would save the country a lot of agony and help lower the temperature over fights for the court that go to the fault lines of cultural issues and is one of the primary things tearing at our social fabric,” Khana said.

As life expectancy has risen, Supreme Court Justices are now serving average terms of more than 25 years. Lengthier terms have increased partisan wrangling and horsetrading and raised concerns about the court’s social legitimacy. Scholars and politicians on both ends of the political spectrum have long supported such an idea. Public opinion polls also show a majority of Americans support term limits for the court.

Ultimately, the bill would allow each president to appoint two justices per 4-year term. While some legal observers believe terms limits for justices requires a constitutional amendment. To avoid constitutional conflict, this bill exempts current justices from the 18-year rule. Justices appointed after the institution of term limits would rotate to lower courts. Khanna argues this is “perfectly consistent with their judicial independence and having a lifetime salary and a lifetime appointment”.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

North Korean leader offers rare apology for killing, burning South Korean official

Yesterday, South Korea reported that North Korean soldiers had seized a South Korean official from a patrol boat, shot him and burned his body. Seoul believes that this brutal act was part of the North’s coronavirus defense protocol. South Korea believes North Korea has a “shoot-to-kill” order in place to prevent the virus from entering the country.

The official, a father of two, is believed to have been defecting to the North, which is rare but not unprecedented. A North Korean patrol boat found the man floating at sea in a life jacket. They questioned him at a distance before receiving orders to shoot him dead in the water. They then poured oil over his corpse and set it alight.

The apology and some rare good news

Today, South Korean President Moon Jae-in received a letter of apology over the incident. The letter said that North Korean leader Kim Jong “was greatly sorry that an unexpected unsavory incident occurred in our waters which hugely disappointed President Moon Jae-in and compatriots in the South,” according to Moon’s adviser Suh Hoon. Suh said that Moon and Kim had recently been exchanging letters in hopes of fostering reconciliation efforts and easing recent tensions. According to Suh, Kim’s latest letter expressed hope that the incident would not hinder these efforts. In a previous letter on Sept. 12, Kim had written that “good things” would happen after the two countries had defeated the coronavirus.

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Wuhan journalist missing since February ‘under state supervision’

A friend of Chinese citizen journalist Chen Qiushi has found Chen, who has been missing for seven months. The friend uploaded a video saying Chen was in good health but ‘under state supervision’. He said that “Qiushi is still under the supervision of a certain agency and hasn’t come home yet”.

Chinese authorities “forcibly quarantined” Chen as he was reporting from Wuhan at the height of the coronavirus outbreak there. This was around the same time of the disappearances of Wuhan businessman Fang Bin and journalist Li Zehua, who were also reporting on the outbreak. Li reappeared in April, but Fang has yet to resurface. In February, Chinese authorities were determined to show that the Wuhan outbreak was under control, a claim with the journalists’ reported contradicted.

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