The most important voting rights trial of the new decade started Monday.
The case is about whether several hundred thousand newly enfranchised Florida felons will be able to cast ballots this fall in the nation's biggest swing state. More broadly, it's about the balance of power between the people and the government.
As the trial opened, lawyers for former convicts argued the clear intent of the electorate, which voted overwhelmingly for a state constitutional amendment in 2018, was to permit their clients to register as soon as they were done with prison, probation and parole. Lawyers for the Republican state government, which decided in 2019 that repayment of fines and restitution would be required as well, said that was a valid interpretation of the voters' will.
Civil rights and voting rights groups argue the financial requirements amount to an unconstitutional poll tax, akin to what was used for decades to suppress the African-American vote. And in a preliminary ruling this winter, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals declared the state "may not erect a wealth barrier" to registration and blocked the law from taking effect until after the trial — and the guaranteed appeal by whichever side loses in coming weeks.
The other central complaint of the plaintiffs is that Florida has no central system for determining what felons owe or certifying they have paid up, putting an unconstitutional and impossible burden on ex-offenders to prove they are eligible to vote. The judge in the case, Robert Hinkle of Tallahassee, demanded six months ago the state rectify that problem -- but Florida officials waited until two weeks ago to sketch a procedure for determining how much a felon owes.
Hinkle kept the trial timetable on track despite the coronavirus pandemic, switching it to webcams and telephone hookups, because of the tight timeline if the outcome is to be meaningful in 2020. The Florida congressional and legislative primaries are Aug. 18. Those who wish to vote in the presidential election have until Oct. 5 to register.
The state's 29 electoral votes are the biggest prize indisputably within reach of both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump won the state by 1.2 percentage points — 113,000 votes — last time, but recent polling has Biden slightly ahead.
The ballot measure, known as Amendment 4, restored voting rights to people with felony convictions (except murderers and sex offenders) once they complete "all terms of their sentence." The subsequent law, pushed through the Republican-majority Legislature by Gov. Ron DeSantis, defines "all terms" to mean all financial obligations connected with the felons' case. The state Supreme Court in January issued an advisory opinion that supported the governor's position.
At least 775,000 felons have such obligations, about 55 percent of the total in the state who are out of prison — the largest bloc of people in modern American history who could get their voting rights back at a single time.
Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political scientist who was the opening expert witness for the plaintiffs Monday, offered that estimate and said his research shows at least 45 percent of the felons with some outstanding obligations owe more than $1,000.
He has estimated that four in five felons who owe something have not paid yet. The report he prepared for the trial looked at records from all of Florida's 67 counties but did not make clear who might qualify as too poor to pay — a key statistic because the judge has signaled the law might be permissible if there's an exemption for the indigent.
Smith has said it is impossible to quantify how many might not be able to vote under the new law because of sloppy and inconsistent record record-keeping.
Before Amendment 4, the state since Reconstruction had barred people with felony convictions from voting for life — unless they could secure permission from a clemency board made up of partisan elected officials. As the referendum campaign was getting started in 2018, a federal judge declared that system unconstitutional and said it disproportionately punished African-Americans.
Thirty other states have laws on the books similar to the one being challenged. Attorney generals for 10 of them have filed court briefs in support of Florida's case. "If states are limited in their ability to pursue re-enfranchisement alongside their other interests, some states may well throw in the towel and prohibit any felon from regaining the right to vote," they wrote.
The trial is being conducted by teleconference — with the judge, witnesses and attorneys on video because of travel and social distancing limitations. The public is permitted to listen in, unusual for a federal trial court proceeding and a reflection of the high degree of interest in the case.
"We're really grateful that the court has found a way to let this go forward in spite of the circumstances," Julie Ebenstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing some of the plaintiffs, said in her opening argument.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.