Election Day at the Scott County Public Library precinct in Georgetown, Kentucky, on Nov. 5, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)
Two Kentucky senators — a Republican and a Democrat — plan to sponsor legislation in 2026 to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot with the aim of restoring voting rights to most convicted felons.
Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, and Sen. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, told Tuesday’s Interim Joint Committee Local Government that their legislation would exclude people convicted of treason, election-related crimes, sexual offenses and crimes against children.
Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)
A spokesman for Senate Democrats said the legislation has “not yet been drafted, as the details are still being worked out.” Higdon said the language will be “pretty much identical” to previous versions of the bill.
His 2020 version also excluded people “with intellectual or developmental disabilities or serious mental illnesses who have been adjudicated as disabled and who have not retained their voting rights or had those rights restored.” That language replaced the outdated label of “idiots and insane persons.”
In 2019, Gov. Andy Beshear restored the voting rights of some 140,000 Kentuckians through an executive order. Beshear also excluded those convicted of violent crimes and other serious offenses. Higdon and Herron expressed concern Tuesday that a future governor could undo Beshear’s order and undo those restored rights.
“Those folks that have served their time — they need that to get that privilege of voting back, as long as it wasn’t a crime against a child, bribery, or any of those listed in the constitutional amendment,” Higdon said.
Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd).
Voting rights restoration varies across the United States, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 23 states, people convicted of felonies lose their right to vote while behind bars and then get that right restored automatically when released. Kentucky is one of 10 states that require additional actions for a person’s voting right to be restored, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“It has been my belief that once someone has been convicted of a crime, they do their time and they come out, that a part of them coming out and being a citizen and being whole is that they should be able to vote again,” Herron said.
Herron and Higdon’s amendment would relate only to voting rights, not other civil rights lost, such as the ability to run for office.
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