Andrea Cabral, former secretary of public safety and sheriff of Suffolk County, joined Boston Public Radio on Wednesday to speak about how Michael Bloomberg can redeem himself from his discriminatory stop-and-frisk era.
Democratic governors in southern states recently started restoring the right to vote to people who have completed sentences for nonviolent felonies, Cabral said. But Republican legislatures in states like Floridademanded that felons pay off all fines before they get their voting rights reinstated.
"Poor people cant afford it, so for want of $200, a woman can be permanently disenfranchised from voting long after she has served her time," Cabral said. "If [Bloomberg] really wants to balance the scales on stop-and-frisk: pay them all, pay all of those poll taxes, pay every single one."
Bloomberg previously defended the stop-and-frisk policy he oversaw as mayor, a policy based on racial profiling.
"All of those people will be able to vote, and Bloomberg can then say... 'I am now trying to re-enfranchise people who are historically disenfranchised by the system.'"
Cabral is the former secretary of public safety and sheriff of Suffolk County. She is currently the CEO of Ascend.
