Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback is making an argument that is likely to create debate on both sides of the political aisle: once someone has completed their criminal sentence and returned to society, their constitutional rights should come back with them.
During an appearance on Matthew Cox’s Inside True Crime podcast, Fishback said he supports restoring both voting rights and Second Amendment rights to people who have served their sentences.
“I believe that after you’ve served your sentence, your voting rights and your Second Amendment rights should be fully restored,” Fishback said.
His argument is built around a simple question: If society has determined that someone has completed their punishment and is safe enough to return to the community, how long should the government continue treating that person as though the sentence never ended?
It is a question worth taking seriously.
Fishback is currently a qualified Republican candidate for Florida governor in the 2026 election, according to Florida’s Division of Elections.
Fishback’s Argument: A Sentence Should Eventually End
Fishback’s comments centered heavily on redemption.
“You make a mistake. You’re not defined by a mistake that you made 10, 15, 20 years ago,” he said.
That part of his argument deserves more attention than it normally receives in political discussions about crime.
A criminal sentence supposedly represents society’s punishment for an offense. That punishment can include prison, probation, parole, fines, restitution and other restrictions.
But after someone completes those obligations, numerous restrictions can remain for years or even for life.
The question becomes whether those restrictions continue serving a legitimate public-safety purpose or whether they effectively create a second sentence that never officially ends.
From my perspective, Fishback is right to challenge that idea.
If someone committed a crime 15 or 20 years ago, served the sentence imposed by the court, remained out of trouble and rebuilt his or her life, I don’t believe that person should automatically remain a second-class citizen forever.
Accountability matters. So does redemption.
Florida Already Recognizes the Principle When It Comes to Voting
Fishback’s position on voting rights is not as radical as some people may assume.
Florida voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 4 in 2018. The constitutional amendment restored voting rights to most people convicted of felonies after they complete the terms of their sentence, although people convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses were excluded.
Amendment 4 received 64.55% of the vote.
That is important because the issue wasn’t decided quietly by politicians in Tallahassee. Florida voters directly endorsed the basic principle that completing a sentence should lead to the restoration of voting rights.
Current Florida law says that, for most Florida felony convictions, a person can register and vote once all terms of the sentence have been completed. Those terms include incarceration, probation or parole and applicable financial obligations required as part of the sentence. Murder and sexual-offense convictions generally require action by the state’s Clemency Board before voting rights can return.
Fishback’s proposal appears to go further by arguing for a broader rule based on completion of punishment and eventual return to full citizenship.
Florida Still Has Hundreds of Thousands of People Unable to Vote
Despite Amendment 4, Florida continues to have one of the country’s largest populations of citizens barred from voting because of felony convictions.
The Sentencing Project estimated that more than 960,000 Florida citizens were disenfranchised because of felony convictions in 2024. The organization estimated that roughly 730,000 had completed their sentences but remained unable to vote, largely because of outstanding legal financial obligations.
Those estimates come from an advocacy organization that supports expanding voting rights, so they should be understood in that context. Still, the numbers illustrate how large the issue remains in Florida.
Florida is also far from alone in restoring voting rights.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 23 states automatically restore voting rights after a person leaves incarceration. Another 15 generally restore voting rights after incarceration plus additional portions of the sentence, such as probation or parole. Maine, Vermont and Washington, D.C., allow people to vote even while incarcerated.
So the concept that citizenship rights can return following incarceration is already normal policy throughout much of the United States.
The Second Amendment Question Is More Complicated
Fishback goes considerably further when discussing firearms.
“The Constitution is pretty clear that the Second Amendment shall not be infringed,” he said.
He argues that a decades-old felony, particularly something such as fraud or another nonviolent crime, should not automatically create a lifetime ban.
I understand that argument.
If we believe constitutional rights are fundamental rights, there should be a serious discussion about whether every felony conviction should permanently eliminate the same constitutional right regardless of the crime, the circumstances or how much time has passed.
There is a major difference between someone recently convicted of an armed violent offense and a person who committed a nonviolent felony 20 years ago and has lived peacefully ever since.
Treating every case exactly the same may be administratively simple, but simple does not always mean fair.
Florida Law Already Allows Firearm Rights to Be Restored in Some Cases
Florida law currently prohibits people convicted of felonies from possessing firearms or ammunition. However, Florida’s statute specifically recognizes an exception when a person’s civil rights and firearm authority have been restored.
So restoration itself is not a foreign concept under Florida law.
The process is much more restrictive than Fishback’s proposed approach.
There is also an important limitation to his statement that he could accomplish this through executive action as governor.
Under Florida law, the governor can grant pardons and restore civil rights with the approval of two members of the Florida Cabinet. The governor therefore has enormous influence over clemency policy but does not possess unlimited unilateral authority to restore every affected right simply by signing an executive order.
A Fishback administration could push the Clemency Board toward a much broader restoration policy, but cooperation from other Cabinet members would matter.
Federal Law Creates Another Obstacle
There is also federal law.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), federal law generally prohibits firearm possession by someone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison.
Federal law does contain an important qualification. Under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), certain convictions that have been expunged, set aside, pardoned or followed by restoration of civil rights may no longer count as disqualifying convictions, depending on the terms of the restoration and applicable law.
That means a Florida governor could influence firearm-rights restoration for certain Florida convictions, but he could not simply erase every federal firearms restriction involving every conviction in the country.
The Florida clemency system itself recognizes this distinction and generally does not use Florida’s firearm-restoration process to restore rights lost because of federal or out-of-state convictions.
Even the Courts Are Still Debating Lifetime Firearm Bans
Fishback’s broader constitutional argument is also part of an ongoing legal debate.
Federal courts have disagreed over whether the federal felon-in-possession law can constitutionally be applied to every person with a felony conviction, particularly people with old or nonviolent offenses.
The Ninth Circuit, for example, has upheld the federal prohibition even as applied to nonviolent felons. The Supreme Court declined to review that ruling in January 2026. Other federal appellate courts have allowed at least some individualized Second Amendment challenges, creating disagreement among the circuits.
That doesn’t mean Fishback’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is legally settled. It isn’t.
It does mean the underlying question is a legitimate constitutional dispute rather than something he invented for a podcast appearance.
What Does the Recidivism Data Tell Us?
One of Fishback’s strongest statements during the interview was also one of his simplest:
If someone supposedly remains too dangerous to have the normal rights of citizenship, “why did you let them out?”
That argument is rhetorically powerful, although public-safety policy is more complicated than that. Being safe enough for release does not necessarily mean the government considers every person to present zero future risk.
Recidivism statistics demonstrate that some people released from prison do commit additional crimes.
A Bureau of Justice Statistics study following prisoners released in 24 states in 2008 found that approximately 66% were arrested within three years and 82% within 10 years. But the risk was not constant over time. The percentage arrested during a particular year fell from 43% during the first year after release to 22% during the tenth year.
That declining risk matters when discussing someone whose conviction happened 10, 15 or 20 years earlier.
Past conduct clearly matters when evaluating risk. But time without another offense matters too.
There is also some Florida-specific evidence worth examining.
An earlier Florida analysis found an 11.1% recidivism rate among 30,672 people whose civil rights had been restored during 2009 and 2010.
That statistic should not be interpreted as proof that restoring rights caused lower crime. People who qualified to have their rights restored may already have been less likely to reoffend, creating a significant selection effect.
Still, it undermines the assumption that people who regain civil rights automatically become a major threat to society.
There Should Be a Difference Between Punishment and Permanent Exile From Citizenship
This is where I agree most strongly with Fishback’s argument.
A justice system should punish people for what they did. It should not automatically assume that they are the exact same person decades later.
Someone convicted at 22 should not necessarily still be judged exclusively by that conviction at 42, 52 or 62.
That doesn’t require ignoring victims. It doesn’t require pretending every former offender is rehabilitated. And it doesn’t require eliminating laws that restrict genuinely dangerous individuals.
There can still be exceptions, individualized restrictions and legal mechanisms for dealing with people who demonstrate continuing dangerousness.
The broader principle is that permanent punishment should require a stronger justification than the existence of an old conviction.
If a person has completed every part of a sentence, returned to society, worked, paid taxes, supported a family and lived peacefully for years, there is a legitimate argument that the government should eventually recognize that person as a full citizen again.
Fishback Is Starting a Debate Bigger Than His Campaign
People can disagree with James Fishback politically and still recognize the importance of the question he raised.
When does punishment end?
Florida voters already answered part of that question in 2018 when nearly two-thirds supported restoring voting rights to most people who completed their sentences.
The Second Amendment portion is more difficult legally and politically. Federal law remains a major obstacle, Florida’s clemency system requires more than the governor acting alone, and courts remain divided over how far the Second Amendment protects people with prior felony convictions.
But Fishback’s underlying argument deserves debate.
A country that believes in accountability should also decide whether it believes in redemption.
If someone serves the punishment imposed by the justice system and demonstrates for years that he or she can live responsibly in society, there should be a path toward becoming a full citizen again.
A criminal record can document someone’s past.
It should not automatically determine that person’s entire future.
