GOP leaders announced Wednesday that they want the Supreme Court of Virginia to consider holding Gov. McAuliffe in contempt for his efforts to restore felons’ political rights en masse despite the Court’s July 22 opinion that struck down the Governor’s first attempt.
The Governor’s new process, Republicans argue, has the same effect of subverting Virginia’s longtime policy of barring felons from voting.
McAuliffe said he was complying with the Court ruling by restoring rights on an individual basis and promised eventually to restore rights to the nearly 214,000 felons under a new process.
In a radio appearance Wednesday, he said his goal is to restore rights for the entire group before his term ends in January 2018.
McAuliffe has criticized the Supreme Court decision and said the Justices who sided against him in the 4-3 opinion relied too heavily on precedent and history rather than legal text.
He also suggested that the Justices may have been cowed by the fact that their appointments depend on the Legislature.
McAuliffe has characterized the action as an attempt to rectify a longstanding racial injustice and has said Virginia’s restrictive felon disenfranchisement is rooted in efforts to suppress African-American votes.
Republicans have denied that the policy has a racial dimension and have argued instead that McAuliffe overstepped his legal authority to help his friend Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Presidential nominee, win Virginia.
On Wednesday, McAuliffe suggested for the first time that Republicans also may be thinking about the Presidential race. He said those who filed the lawsuit are “more concerned with the impact new voters could have on Donald Trump’s campaign than they are with the dignity of the people whom they continue to drag through the mud.”
Republicans urged the Supreme Court to take up their request forthwith and noted that Absentee ballots could be “made available to illegal voters” by Sept. 24. They suggested the Court could hold oral arguments on the contempt motion in an upcoming session scheduled Sept. 12-16.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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