Virginia Governor Creates 200,000 New Hillary Voters
Uses executive order to allow felons to vote.
Virginia’s Democrat governor Terry McAuliffe just gave his party and Hillary Clinton a huge gift for the 2016 election by granting felons the right to vote.
He did it by executive order to circumvent the state’s Republican led legislature and claimed it was all about righting wrongs of the past.
The New York Times reported:
Virginia Governor Restores Voting Rights to Felons
WASHINGTON — Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia used his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing the Republican-run legislature. The action effectively 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 or probation 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. Virginia imposes especially harsh restrictions, barring felons from voting for life.
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 and an estimated 44,000 former prisoners who are on probation can now register to vote.
McAuliffe defended his decision on PBS NewsHour:
Can you guess who thought this was a great idea?
Proud of my friend @GovernorVA for continuing to break down barriers to voting. -H https://t.co/sL6NBLKwho
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 22, 2016
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
growing up the fact that I would lose my right to vote and my right
to own a gun kept me from doing a lot of stupid stuff …
so now VA will remain blue …. all part of the plan.
And you always knew that the loss of the franchise would not be permanent; that if you went and sinned no more you could eventually apply to the governor and get it restored.
I think that, one of the stated goals of penal law being “rehabilitation”, a felon should be able to regain rights, BUT on a showing of rehabilitation that is rigorous. A LOT more rigorous than not violating (or not getting caught violating) parole.
Like YEARS of good living.
I also think that we make it very hard for felons to be law-abiding when they are released, as regular work…or even a place to stay…can be all but barred to them.
I know several young men who committed felonies as late teens, and really have never dreamed of repeating, who really want…and have worked for…normal lives. They can’t have them.
That said, again, the road to redemption for felons should be a hard one, and not one that’s a transparent cheap political move like this one by McAwful.
But there are felons we punish for life – by imprisoning them for life. Rehabilitation is not always possible even when incarceration is not for life. There is no practical or legal reason why some forms of punishment (other than incarceration) cannot and should not be imposed for life. Pardons are often excused with the saying “they’ve served their time,” but “time” is only one component of punishment. Loss of rights other than freedom, even for a lifetime, are not necessarily inappropriate.
Hillary might as well have said, “I know that the criminals are gonna vote for me!’
Hard to tell what’s going on here, due to the crap reporting this story has had right from the beginning.
The action effectively overturns a Civil War-era provision in the state’s Constitution
“Effectively”? Well, does it or doesn’t it? If it doesn’t, there isn’t much of a story here. If it does, then this is Yuuugge. A Governor unilaterally blowing off his state’s Constitution at whim—and getting away with it—is a much bigger story than whether or not Hillary approves.
My questions is: how will the state legislative body react to this? Will they challenge it on state constitution grounds? Or will they roll over and do nothing?
Is this legal?
He’s a Democrat.
What’s legal got to do with it?
Yes, of course it’s legal. As far as I know every state governor except Texas’s has the plenary power to pardon any crime or commute any sentence in whole or in part. VA’s governor has certainly always had the power to restore any felon’s civil rights, in whole or in part. It’s usually given on an individual basis, but there’s a very long tradition of general pardons and commutations, and it’s well established that these are valid. There’s no legal bar to his action, whether it’s good for the state or not.
McCauliffe has always been corrupt scum, ahd has no more business being in public office than Crooked Hillary Clinton.
So criminals are now voting other criminals into office.
The ‘obamaization’ of America continues.
No big deal. The ex-cons won’t bother to vote. Besides, Virginia voters put McCauliffe in the state house and will vote for Hillary too.
No problem McA, dems will register them and have their ballots filled out mailed for them.
Did someone clean up the voter registry and remove all of the dead people? In that case it gave the D’s another list of people to use for packing the ballot box.
If the legislature gives the Governor the power to do what he did, then why blame the Governor? When will legislatures learn to sparsely hand over power to the executive?
Boehner must now be the Squeaker of the Virginia state legislature.
It’s got nothing to do with the legislature. The governor’s power to restore felons’ franchise is in the same clause of the constitution that restricts it in the first place. “No person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to vote unless his civil rights have been restored by the Governor or other appropriate authority.” The legislature can’t remove that power.
From your link, looks like the NYT changed the not giving back gun rights part of the quote:
“People have served their time and done their probation,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “I want you back in society. I want you feeling good about yourself. I want you voting, getting a job, paying taxes.’’
From what I found and posted in the Reader Forum yesterday in the original NYT article which included the no guns:
“People have served their time and done their probation,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “I want you back in society. I want you feeling good about yourself. I want you voting, getting a job, paying taxes. I’m not giving people their gun rights back and other things like that. I’m merely allowing you to feel good about yourself again, to feel like you are a member of society.”
——-
The Atlantic added the no guns part.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/virginia-felons-voting/479517/
“People have served their time and done their probation,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “I want you back in society. I want you feeling good about yourself. I want you voting, getting a job, paying taxes. I’m not giving people their gun rights back and other things like that. I’m merely allowing you to feel good about yourself again, to feel like you are a member of society.”
Just noticed NYT also dropped McAuliffe’s “I’m MERELY ALLOWING” you to feel good.
Hmm.
My memory is that their ties go way back – that McAuliffe was one of Bill Clinton’s bigger fund raise, and that it was through the Clintons that he got his DNC position, which led to being the gov. of VA.
So, by executive fiat, the right to vote and serve on a jury are restored to felons, but not the right to keep and bear arms? That is odd, as in the Constitution you do not see that rights of felons who have served their sentences are ever revoked. If you cannot trust someone with anything sharp, a motor vehicle, sporting goods such as a baseball bat, construction tools such as hammer, or anything else that can be used as a weapon, even a shod foot or a fist, then they have no reason to be walking freely among us.
Do they not have the right to self-defense? If so, do not they the right to effective self-defense?
McAuliffe’s failure to restore their gun rights proves the point I made in my comment above – that some forms of punishment, besides loss of freedom, can be imposed for life (and after a felon “has paid his debt to society” and all that other crap). Rightly or wrongly, McAuliffe believes that the right to arms shouldn’t be restored with their voting rights, putting the lie to his claims about why he’s restoring the particular rights he chose to restore. He obviously believes it’s more important for them to vote (Democrat) than it is to be able to defend themselves against lethal threats.
Yes, commutations and rehabilitations can be in whole or in part. That’s how it’s always been.
I hope they start a Super PAC; “Convicted Felons for Hillary”