Florida Recovery Rights Coalition, FRRC”
The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) began as a project of the ACLU in 2003. In 2007 the state of Florida began allowing automatic restoration of voting rights for certain felons (returning citizens) after completing their sentence. In response the FRRC launched a voter outreach campaign targeting returning citizens whose rights had been restored. In 2011, Florida, under Governor Rick Scott, reversed its 2007 rights restoration policy, bringing to a stop of civil rights in the state.
In 2012 FRRC became an official organization, with Desmond Meade, a returned citizen, as its president. Most of its members and leadership are returning citizens who have the passion to keep on moving on. Returning citizens have their lives at stake, are motivator for success. Allies are welcome to join. FRRC Branches are distributed across Florida. Any organized group can become a FRRC branch and follow its guidelines.
FRRC members promote four goals for returning citizens to achieve:
1. Voter Restoration
2. Employment
3. Housing
4. Education
They know from experience that these goals will give their colleagues full citizenship and dramatically reduced recidivism.
The FRRC’s mission is to advocate for all returning citizens to achieve these goals, through legislative initiative and registering and educating voters. And when necessary to fight the battles in the courts.
In 2013, the FRRC launched a ballot initiative to put voting rights restoration in front of Florida voters. This galvanized a wide coalition of allies and like-minded human rights organizations such as the Florida NAACP and the LWV Florida. This led to a march to Tallahassee to protest the offices of State Attorney Pam Bondi’s and the Governor Scott’s. In 2014 The FRRC was invited to testify before the UN Committee for Human Rights and at President Obama’s White House.
During 2015 the focus was to build grassroots for supporters to sign petitions to get the citizens’ initiative on the 2018 ballot. It became Amendment 4. Between 2010 and 2016, the number of disenfranchised Floridians grew between 150,000 to 1.686 million, including 1 in 5 of Florida’s Black voting-age population. The Coalition collected close to a million petition signatures, putting Amendment 4 on the ballot. Sixty-four percent of Florida’s voters voted for Amendment 4, restoring the rights to 1.4 million people. It seemed that in the flush of victory, voting rights had brought the end of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida.
Alas, victory was short lived. The Florida legislature responded to Amendment 4 with the passage of SB 7066, requiring returning citizens to pay back all fees and fines resulting from their convictions, disqualifying 750,000 Floridians from voting.
The Florida legislature intended that returning citizens would find it almost impossible locate their records, and therefore not be able to pay their fines and fees, thus keeping them disenfranchised. There is no centralized court records data base.
The FRRC responded by collecting $30 million to support returning citizens in paying their fines and fees. They also received the support from pro-bono lawyers to guide their clients through the difficult process of finding where their fines and fees were recorded in Clerks of Court records in 67 counties. Once again, the state NAACP and LWV and others stepped in to help. By 2020, 190,000 Florida returning citizens were registered to vote in November elections.
The FRRC continues to advocate to lower the felony threshold in the state, to enact probation reforms, as well as legislation to clear the felony records of juveniles who completed a diversion program. Between 2019- 2021 the FRRC has registered 100,000 voters.
The FRRC continues to function as a coalition of citizens and organizations fighting for human rights for all Florida’s citizens, especially the marginalized.
For more information about FRRC
407-901-3749
info@floridarrc.org
FaceBook: flrightsrestore
