Twelve years ago, Yvonne Kennedy, a Democratic member of Alabama’s House of Representatives, began a campaign to re-enfranchise ex-prisoners in the state after they had served out their sentences. At the time, Kennedy’s crusade appeared little short of quixotic; in an era where politicians were made and broken according to their tough-on-crime credentials, who in their right mind would waste political capital arguing that ex-cons should have the right to vote?
