Tag Archives: felons voting

AOC joins Bernie in pitching a nutty notion

This comment is for you, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

You, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, have rocks in your noggin. You need your head examined. This notion you’ve backed to give felons voting rights while they are locked up behind bars is a nutty notion that needs to find its way to the trash heap.

I hope you don’t mind if I call you “AOC.” It’s the new term being assigned to you despite your lack of any meaningful experience on the national stage. Maybe you’ll earn some standing once you get past your rookie term in Congress, but for now you don’t deserve it.

Still, since the media are infatuated with you and Republicans have deemed you some sort of existential threat, I guess your endorsement of Bernie’s nutty idea deserves a brief rebuke here.

You say the prison system is out of whack. Maybe it is. You don’t fix what ails the federal penal system by granting voting rights to incarcerated felons. Let them finish their prison terms and then grant them the right to vote once they have paid their debt to our society.

You see, where I come from, AOC, when you commit a felony you lose some rights of citizenship. Voting is one of them. It ought to stay that way, in my humble view.

A couple of Democratic presidential candidates — Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro, both of Texas — want to give those votes only to non-violent felons. I’m not keen on that idea, either, but at least it’s a little less wacky than what you and Bernie are pitching.

Prison reform? Sure thing. Felon voting rights? No way, young lady.