Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia used his Executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing his Republican-run Legislature. The action overturns a Civil War-era provision in the State’s Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans.
The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November Presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole to register to vote. Most are African-Americans, a core constituency of Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe’s Political Party.
Amid intensifying National attention over harsh sentencing policies that have disproportionately affected African-Americans, Governors and Legislatures around the nation have been debating, and often fighting over, moves to restore voting rights for convicted felons.
In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin, a newly elected Republican, recently overturned an order enacted by his Democratic predecessor that was similar to the one Mr. McAuliffe signed Friday.
In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed a measure to restore voting rights to convicted felons, but Democrats in the State Legislature overrode him in February; an estimated 44,000 former prisoners who are on probation are now eligible to register to vote as a result.
“There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans — we should remedy it,” Mr. McAuliffe said Thursday, previewing the announcement he made on the steps of Virginia’s Capitol, just yards from where President Abraham Lincoln once addressed freed slaves. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can.”
The action, which Mr. McAuliffe said was justified under an expansive legal interpretation of his Executive clemency authority, goes far beyond what other Governors have done, experts say, and will almost certainly provoke a backlash from Virginia Republicans, who have resisted measures to expand felons’ voting rights. It was planned in secrecy, and came amid an intensifying National debate over race, voting and the criminal justice system.
There is no way to know how many of the newly eligible voters in Virginia will register, but Mr. McAuliffe said he would encourage all to do so. “My message is going to be that I have now done my part,” he said.
The Republican Party of Virginia quickly issued a statement accusing Mr. McAuliffe of “political opportunism” and “a transparent effort to win votes.”
“Those who have paid their debts to society should be allowed full participation in society,” said the statement, issued by the Party Chairman, John Whitbeck. “But there are limits.” He said the Governor was wrong to issue a blanket restoration of rights, even to those who “committed heinous acts of violence.”
Only two states, Maine and Vermont, have no voting restrictions on felons. Of the remaining 48, 12 states disenfranchise felons after they have completed probation or parole, said Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington policy organization that advocates restoring felons’ voting rights.
Virginia is one of four states, the others are Kentucky, Florida and Iowa, that impose the harshest restrictions. The Sentencing Project says one in five African-Americans in Virginia is disenfranchised.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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