{"id":389,"date":"2011-01-17T14:55:47","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T20:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=389"},"modified":"2011-01-17T14:55:47","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T20:55:47","slug":"love-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"Love To Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-156\" title=\"webeagle\" src=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Stephanie and I met over the issue of ex-felon voting rights.\u00a0 As each of us represented a non-profit organization that opposed the disenfranchisement of ex-felons, we began to see each other more and more at meetings as the movement progressed.\u00a0 We became friends.<\/p>\n<p>After a period of months, we became very good friends.\u00a0 Soon, we started to date.\u00a0 Our friends noticed that we were dating and asked us when we were going to get married.\u00a0 We sort of joked and said: \u201cWhen ex-felons get their voting rights restored.\u201d\u00a0 Several months after that, Governor Vilsack\u2019s legal counsel, Gary Dickey, called me to inform me that Governor Vilsack was going to announce at a media conference that he would be signing an executive order on July 4<sup>th<\/sup>, restoring voting rights to thousands of ex-felons.<\/p>\n<p>Once Governor Vilsack signed Executive Order 42 we kept seeing each other.\u00a0 We became best friends, and I asked Stephanie to marry me.\u00a0 We were married in October of 2005 and many of our friends who helped with the movement to gain voting rights for ex-felons attended our small wedding in the back yard.<\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, in the second action of the new administration, Governor Branstad signed Executive Order 70, which rescinds the July 4, 2005 action of Governor Vilsack.\u00a0 A reasonable person might come to the conclusion that, since the voting rights of ex-felons are jeopardized, this could weaken our marriage.\u00a0 Oh, quite contrary!\u00a0 Our love grows deeper (if that\u2019s even remotely possible) as we gear up to fight for the rights of the disenfrachised \u2013 most of whom are dirt poor.<\/p>\n<p>Why does this society continue to throw rocks at poor people?\u00a0 The only real power most poor citizens possess is the power to elect their community leaders.\u00a0 Disenfranchisement prevents a true representative form of government.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a9 Copyright 2010-2011 Fawkes-Lee &amp; Ryan.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why does this society continue to throw rocks at poor people?  <a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=389\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[88,164,166,167,16,165,15,14],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issues","category-voting-rights-issues","tag-branstad","tag-disenfranchisement","tag-executive-order-42","tag-executive-order-70","tag-felons","tag-gary-dickey","tag-vilsack","tag-voting-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}