Ex-U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown running for Congress again, now in Central Florida

Once imprisoned and disgraced, former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown is running for Congress again, this time in Central Florida.

The former 12-term congresswoman filed paperwork Thursday in Tallahassee to enter the fall elections and a website, VoteCorrine.com, was created Wednesday to raise campaign donations.

The website said Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat who lost reelection after a 2016 fraud indictment that put her in prison, is seeking to represent the 10th Congressional District, which U.S. Rep. Val Demings is leaving because of her campaign for U.S. Senate.

“I’ve represented most of the people of the new 10th District during my 24 years in Congress and I always earned huge support in this region,” Brown was quoted as saying in a release posted on the website. “Now I see our hard-won gains are being taken away from us.”

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Parts of Central Florida were within the winding district Brown was first elected to in the 1990s, when she and two other African-Americans became the first Black Floridians elected to Congress since the 19th century.

Brown told a USA Today Network journalist she had prayed about running and had received phone calls encouraging her to campaign again.

"People wanted me to come back," she said. "They want their voice back."

If she were elected, Brown said she would work for changes in the criminal justice system as well as subjects she focused on in office before, including transportation. Noting Congressional support for improving transportation infrastructure, she added: "Florida and Central Florida have not received the benefits for it. So, I'm going to go back to work"

Conviction can't keep Corinne Brown from running for Congress

Brown pleaded guilty last month to a single federal charge of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct administration of internal revenue laws, essentially lying on her tax returns.

That plea finished a six-year legal struggle in which she was convicted of 18 counts surrounding a sham charity and ordered imprisoned for five years but had the conviction overturned on appeal.

Brown would be running as a convicted felon, but a 2002 report from the Congressional Research Service said the U.S. Constitution allows that, and states can’t prevent it.

“Specifically, there is no qualification in the Constitution that one not be a convicted felon” to serve in Congress, the report said.

The VoteCorrine website said it was paid for by Friends of Corrine Brown, the name of the political committee Brown created in 1992. However, the Federal Election Commission website listed the committee as having been “administratively terminated,” with no records involving them since 2016.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Corrine Brown running again for Congress in Central Florida