This one is giving me a touch of heartburn.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has come out for a major criminal justice change, which would be to restore voting rights for those who have been convicted of a felony.

http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/criminal-justice-reform-gains-steam

I’ve had trouble with this notion for many years. I long have thought that someone who commits a felony ought to lose his or her right to vote, given that they have committed serious crimes against society. Thus, they have surrendered their right to determine who should govern the society against which they have committed their crime.

Then a certain light bulb came on.

If you sentence someone to prison and that someone serves his or her term, has the prisoner then repaid — in full — a debt to society? Furthermore, if that debt is paid in full, doesn’t the felon have the right to become a full citizen, given that the sentence has been carried out according to the law?

Holder spoke to a Georgetown University Law School crowd when he said: “At worst, these laws, with their disparate impact on minority communities, echo policies enacted during a deeply troubled period in America’s past – a time of post-Civil War discrimination,” Holder said. “And they have their roots in centuries-old conceptions of justice that were too often based on exclusion, animus and fear.”

I’m still wrestling a bit with this one, but my inclination is to allow felons — I do not want to call them “ex-felons,” because the record is permanent — the right to be re-enfranchised in the voting process.

They’ve paid for their crimes. So why not allow them back into society?