To support yes in support of the rules and regulations for aca6. Thank you. Thank you. Next i want to call up brendon woods who is the Alameda County public defender. Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me to say a few words about this important pieces of legislation that is being considered in sacramento. As you heard, aca6 will allow the voters to decide whether people on parole should be given the right to vote. As i said earlier in a rally today just to provide some context, 21 countries, 21, currently allow people to vote if you are on parole or if you are in prison. 21 countries. Those countries include spain, switzerland, sweden, germany, and even south africa. South africa. In april of 1999, the Constitutional Court of south africa declared the universality of the disenfranchisement is important, not only for the nation and democracy to vote for each and every citizen is a badge of personhood. In south africa they literally said every vote counts. In south africa they recognize that people in custody lose their liberty, not to be stripped of other fundamental rights. The number of people who have been stripped of this right has risen dramatically with the rise of mass incarceration. In 1976 there were 1. 7 Million People disenfranchised. That those to now today 6. 1 million. 6. 1 million. In 2016 november election, there were 6. 1 million citizens who were ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction. For context 4. 7 million were not incarcerated. 4. 7 million were on the streets. Due to overincarceration, this has a devastating effect on black and brown communities. Black people are four times more likely to be disenfranchised. 1 out of 15 black opposed to 1 in 56 nonblack voters. 2. 2 million black people are banned from voting in this country. Aca6 will address this and it will also increase Public Safety by welcoming returning citizens. Research conducted on this topic consistently finds that harsher voting restriction laws results in higher rates of recidivism in those states. Higher recidivism laws equate to more disenfranchisement. So in 2012 a study posed by uc berkley. If one has no stake in his or her community, then one has little incentive to involve in a social manner in order to avoid punishment. This is important to rehabilitation and reintegration. In a recent study, 76 of parolees said that voting would help them stay out of jail, 76. Furthermore, im going to end with this, people who are incarcerated or on parole are uniquely situated to offer solutions on how we can prevent incarceration and promote Public Safety. Voting would give them and allow them to have a voice in important policy decisions. So it is time that we in california stop telling our neighbours they dont belong, stopping telling them they cant participate. Lets put that rhetoric to an end. Democracy needs everyone. We need to fix this. We need to patch aca6. We need to free the vote and i urge you to support the resolution. Thank you. Thank you to all three of our experts and to the many experts who i see also in the room here with us today. We can open it up. Chair ronen sure. Well now open this item up for Public Comment. Anyone who would like to speak, if you could line up on your right this side of the room. Mr. Wright, would you like to start us off . This is very important and by the same response he has numerous demonstrations, demonstrating how it affects people of color, but i want to highlight that everybody here is fair and equal opportunity abrogater and speaking up for the race theyre standing up for, but also i want to point out i believe everybody is like me fair and outside the people of colour as well because, see, there are whites too who are in the same type of position as people of colour who dont have the opportunity to vote as well. So all of you who are caucasian nationality white people, when you see us speaking like this, were not just speaking up for ourselves, were speaking up for you too because youre on parole too and you cant vote. This is not a situation where we want differential treatment. Were equal opportunity abrogators, and we want equal protection under the law and due process. Dont think were being biased against you because were not. Getting everybody to think that is the way to be and applies to the housing opportunities here in San Francisco and it hasnt been fair. Some of you touched spaces on housing while youre talking about the voting situation. All of it is a derivative of each other. [ bell rings ]. Is that clear . I also want to point out that when you paid your debt to society, you should automatically have a clean slate to begin with. When you get sentenced for that amount of time, that time is completed, thats why youre released. Youve been on parole or probation is just a way to make sure that you dont fall back in the system and the situation where youre behind bars again. [ bell rings ]. Chair ronen thank you. Next speaker, please. Im very nervous. Excuse me. My name is louis hammonds. Im a member of the united players and i support all or none. Im a formerly incarcerated inmisstai inmai inmate who is a returning community member. Thats something that says to us as a whole that were stakeholders and we have a moral obligation to make a difference in our community. I also work for the division of parole as a navigator. I help those returning home to navigate their way through the system to be a success. Many restrictions as they were talking about rely on trying to try to help us protect ourselves, make sure were doing the right things. We have motivation tempered with patience and were renewed back into the recovery of life. This restriction actually is an opposition to that. It does not promote harmony, productivity, prosocial justice, and so i would say that i have to just speak for myself. Theres nothing that i could ever do to repay society for my incarceration or the acts that ive done, so i dont come here to say ive done my time, i deserve that right. Its going to take a lifetime for me to even try to mend those things. But what i do say is as a leader of this community that i ask that we be stakeholders and brought to the table. They say every vote counts [ bell rings ]. What i here is every life should count. I respectfully request as a son of a mother who retired with the u. S. Army spending 38 years and the father of a son of a Police Officer in stockton, i say pleased allow us to come to the table as stakeholders and make a difference in our community. Thank you very much. Good morning and greetings to all. I am formerly incarcerated and i represent all of us or none which is a project for prisoners with children. Parole serves as a vehicle of reentry into society in which individuals regain their reclaim their full citizenship and which entails the right to pay taxes, the right to vote, and the right to serve on juries. It is my civic duty and responsibility to change the narrative as to who formerly incarcerated folks are. We are not inmates, convicts, parolees, we are returning citizens. For the record, i am full support of aca6. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is paul conley. I was born and raised in San Francisco, and i know that San Francisco has a long history of not absorbing everybody in the population. This is another attempt to ostracise members of the society. The statistics that you provided are troubling that black people are less than 6 of the population, 45 of people on parole in San Francisco are black. Im from a community of color, and its disappearing, almost every black neighbourhood in San Francisco is disappearing. If 46 of people on parole are black, theres no wonder why, we dont have a say so on a local level, were losing your property, so much, our freedom and i would like for us to do whatever we can to make sure people from this city can remain in this city and have a voice in this city. My name is arian chekova. I am a resident of San Francisco since 1992. Im a Public School teacher in san bruno and a parent here in the city. I am a sister of a man who served ten years under minimum sentencing guidelines. This caused our entire family to be imprisoned for those ten years, but it didnt end because theres 20 years he is out now at the age of 33 and hes out it now and hes got a 20year parole sentence in which he cannot vote, he continues to not be a citizen of this country. During his sentencing, during his imprisonment, my father and mother who were very poor, were unable to get him a good lawyer, therefore the long sentence, overly long, drove across the country. My father died of a heart attack. One could say he died of heart break to go and see his son. He never saw his son again. Over the ten years he was imprisoned, my mother lost her job, lost all of her retirement. I spent thousands of dollars bringing myself, my son, my husband, my whole family out to visit my brother between two to three times a year in the south of this country. [ bell rings ]. Its a long journey for families. I saw a lot of broken families. I empathized with all the families, all the women, all the children, all the hiss and wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, of people who are incarcerated, it is a long, long time and we need to give every Single Person the right to full citizenship under the law and the right to vote as soon as we possibly can. Everybody who has served their sentence needs the right. Thank you very much. [ bell rings ]. Chair ronen next speaker. Good morning. My name is michael sevadra. Im also formerly incarcerated. I spent 19. 5 years in prison. Im now a pathway to Law School Student and also i work and pay taxes. However, i cant vote and i think its very important for me to be reintegrated back into the community to have that right and also to represent my community because my community is being marginalized as well and their voice as well as mine need to be heard. So i urge you to pass this. Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, my name is wendy click. I work for hospitality house but also represent myself. Im formerly incarcerated. The sentence i carried, i had to be on parole for five years. If it wasnt for the dorothy nones and joe wilsons, i never would have thought about voting. After my five years, this past november was the first time i was able to vote. I brought 34 people who have never voted here to city hall. We did a walk to windy and that was so liberating for me because it wasnt for all of us or none of us who gave that pamphlet out to vote, i wouldnt have had all 34 folks here. Im going to continue this, but now at hospitality house, we have people, six with a life sentence. We are reaching out to the communities to say lets get out and vote. So i support this, hospitality house supports this, and we all would love for this to pass. Thank you. Good morning, my name is michael mendosa, and im the policy director with the antirecidivism coalition. We are in strong support of this resolution. We want to thank supervisor haney for his leadership and believe that democracy needs everybody. Thank you. My name is kelly savage. I work for the California Coalition of women prisoners with all or none and several others. As formerly incarcerated individual, i understand that no matter what choices we made then, today were at jeopardy every single day we dont have an opportunity to vote. Our safety is at risk. Were not afforded the same opportunities as everyone else. If were harmed in the community, the da may or may not decide if they want to prosecute that person that harms us because were not full citizens until that parole is over. That is unacceptable. Were here paying rent, were here paying taxing, were here paying every other bill everyone else pays. With this vote, it will give us one more opportunity to get one more step towards that citizenship we deserve just as well as everybody else. Once again, as others have talked about, its not about negating the crime itself, its about who we are today because we earn the right to be here. Thank you. Chair ronen thank you. Is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out and your incredibly compelling testimony. I could not be more proud to be a cosponsor of this measure, this item. The fact is, and many of you expressed this very articulately and clearly, that in this country there has been systemic efforts to prevent black people from voting for ever, since slavery, whether its, you know, violence in lynching, whether its literacy tests, whether its the requirement of i. D. Cards, i mean, every tactic that you can that any system could think of to prevent africanamericans from voting has been tried, and this is the latest effort of that. And we must work tirelessly until we eliminate all of these barriers to anyone. Now, not only africanamerican folks, but latino folks and anyone incarcerated, but primarily people of color are disenfranchised and their vote is taken away over the most important decisions of them and their families and about as wrong as wrong can be. Were going to change that law here in california. This is the first step in getting there, and im very, very excited to be passing this resolution in our city. Thank you so much for all your work. Supervisor walton. Supervisor walton thank you, chair ronen. First, i want to thank everybody who came out to speak today and who came out to the rally, and of course supervisor haney and all sponsors in support of aca6. Its really like darcy none said earlier when he talked about the fact when you take away someones right to vote, youre actually taking it away from their children, youre taking it away from their grandchildren, and youre creating a generational way of keeping voice out of the political system and out of the system where people make decisions. Of course thats unfortunate, that generational silence, but we also have to stop using the law to try to keep people from being able to reengage into society. Trying to use the law or mistakes and lessons that people have learned to keep them from being successful and positive pieces of society. We do understand that a big part of being productive is actually having the right to vote and we notice singling out people of color, we know what the data shows and demonstrates in terms of who is incarcerated, who is formerly incarcerated, who has a voice and doesnt get the right to vote. The last thing i will say from a commonsense standpoint, we understand that people are more productive when they have a voice and opportunity to reengage, and the more additional obstacles we put in front of people, the harder it is for them to be successful and reengage in society. Anecdotally, friends and family whove been incarcerated and never had someone come home for the most part and say the first thing i want to do is go out and create another crime. They want another job to make income and they need family and friends a positive support system. When you put obstacle and obstacle and obstacle on top of all of the other things that weigh in when someone is trying to reengage in society, it makes it worse and taking away the right to vote is another form of that obstacle. I want to thank you all for being here and of course i want to thank our votes at the state for pushing aca6 forward. This is only one step in terms of the changes we really need to make to make sure people can positively reengage in society. This is a very important step. Thank you, supervisor haney and colleagues. Supervisor mar thank you. Yeah, i also wanted to, first of all, thank supervisor haney for bringing this resolution forward. Thank you to all the state legislators who have cosponsored and thanks to all the advocates who spoke today and at the rally and especially the formerly incarcerated and returning Community Members for all of your dedication and focus on this issue and in the broader issues of restorative justice. Yeah, as my colleagues have stated, is another important step that i think we can take as a state in the state of california in terms of racial and restorative justice. As elected officials, we know or understand as well as everyone that elections matter and every vote matters and i think the voice and the vote of Community Members who are on parole are incredibly important to bring forward right now in all of our elections, local, state, and especially the federal elections coming up in 2020. So again, im thanks to everyone for all your work on this issue. I look forward to not just moving this resolution forward, but supporting all the work yall are doing on these important issues. I also want to thank everybody who came out today and especially the returning citizens, returning Community Members, who have been leading this fight for a long time and got us to this point where we have got the opportunity to put this on the ballot that can really address this. Its going to take all of us to get this passed. Theres going to be fearmongering and misinformation. We have to make sure the governor signs it on his desk and it goes to the ballot. We know in this building, sometimes people dont want things on the ballot and this has to go on the ballot. What florida has shown is that we can win when were united and when we correct the misinformation. Particularly, were going to talk about democracy and were going to talk about rights, and thats the right framing, but also the Current Situation is damaging to Public Safety, that when you exclude people after theyve been released from prison and you continue to isolate them and marginalize them, thats what causes that doesnt only not serve Public Safety, it doesnt enhance the Public Safety in any way. So were going to fight that misinformation as well. I want to thank everybody whos been on the front lines of this. I joined for the march with wendy and thats where i voted. Actually, when i was elected, thats the time that i voted and was very proud for your leadership and this is a frisk issue, this is an important issue for our community. So we need to see it through and be on the front lines and follow the lead of our formerly incarcerated returning Community Members as you all lead this fight and we join you. Thank you to my coauthors, all three of you, and to the committee for considering this. Chair ronen thank y