Virginia Republican leaders are asking the Virginia Supreme Court to hold Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in contempt for ignoring the 4-3 ruling the court issued this past July, which prohibited the governor from endorsing the mass restoration of voting rights to over 200,000 felons who had been released from prison.
The court said McAuliffe could not grant rights to “an entire class of people” and had called it an “unconstitutional suspension of law.”
However, McAuliffe is still allowed to grant voting rights on a case-by-case basis and has restored rights to 13,000 felons on an individual basis.
“The process … fully complies with the Virginia Supreme Court’s order and the precedent of governors before me,” McAuliffe said in an Aug. 22 statement. “It also reflects the clear authority the governor possesses to use his own discretion to restore rights of people who have served their time.”
McAuliffe’s current restoration process includes two steps. The first step is to re-restore the rights of the individuals who had their registration canceled due to the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision. The second step will be to restore the rights of other individuals that were included in McAuliffe’s original goal of restoring rights to 214,000 people.
“It is my hope that the approach we announced today marks the end of the partisan battles that have been waged over this issue so that every Virginian leader can play a role in welcoming these individuals back to society and building a commonwealth of greater justice, equality and opportunity for every family,” McAuliffe said in the Aug. 22 statement.
Several Republican state legislators say the governor’s efforts, however, are violating the court’s decision by mass printing and mailing individual rights-restoration orders rather than waiting for felons to apply for restoration.
“The seriousness of Gov. McAuliffe’s flagrant and repeated violation of the Constitution requires us to take action,” House Speaker William Howell said in an Aug. 31 statement. “We have an obligation to check the excesses of executive power and hold the governor accountable to the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Howell, as well as Virginia Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment Jr., filed the motion against McAuliffe to have the Virginia Supreme Court hold the governor in contempt of court and said McAuliffe has again suspended the Virginia Constitution.
"This lawsuit is an attempt to use the judiciary system to intimidate and disenfranchise people who are living in our communities and paying taxes,” McAuliffe said in a statement released Aug. 31. “The people who have filed it 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 with their political lawsuits and ugly attacks.”
Following Howell’s motion, Norment said Thursday he will be proposing a constitutional amendment to allow for the restoration of voting rights for nonviolent felons and which would take the governor’s office out of the entire process.
“To ensure the unnecessary drama that ensued after Governor McAuliffe issued his unconstitutional rights restoration order on April 22 does not repeat itself, this amendment would remove the executive from the rights restoration process,” Norment said in a statement, according to NBC12.
This amendment will be introduced in the General Assembly’s 2017 session.
“Senator Norment attempts to disguise this goal by couching his proposal as a means to ease restrictions against those who have committed nonviolent felonies, but the details of his plan expose that claim as a deliberate falsehood,” McAuliffe said in a statement released Thursday.
McAuliffe called the proposal “a step backward for those convicted of nonviolent felonies as well” and said the proposal would become a “modern-day poll tax” by requiring felons to pay court costs.
The Virginia Supreme Court is yet to rule on the Republican leaders’ motion to hold McAuliffe in contempt.
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