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Virginia Governor Bypasses Court Ruling To Help 200,000 Ex-Felons Vote
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/23/3801355/virginia-felon-voting-update/Virginia Governor Bypasses Court Ruling To Help 200,000 Ex-Felons Vote
by Alice Ollstein
Jul 23, 2016 10:36 am
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is taking action to restore the voting rights of thousands of ex-offenders in the state after a court decision Friday put them in jeopardy. He’s getting around the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling against him by signing 200,000 individual clemency grants to the state’s ex-offenders to ensure their right to vote in November.
In a 4 to 3 decision late Friday, the Supreme Court of Virginia stripped away the voting rights from 200,000 ex-offenders who had recently regained full civil rights through one of McAuliffe’s executive orders, effectively disenfranchising one in five of the state’s African American voters.
The court said the governor lacks the authority under the state constitution to issue a blanket rights restoration to everyone in the state with a felony record who has already served their full sentence. A study earlier this year found that the vast majority of those impacted — 80 percent — committed non-violent crimes. Most have been out of prison for more than a decade, and African Americans are disproportionately represented. Forty-six percent of the ex-offenders are black, though blacks make up less than 20 percent of the state’s population.
The non-partisan group that has for months been leading the charge on registering ex-offenders to vote, New Virginia Majority, released a statement saying the ruling “reaffirms the Commonwealth’s Jim Crow legacy,” noting that the vast majority of states restore voting rights upon release from prison.
“Excluding Virginians from the ballot, even after they’ve paid their debts to society, is a cruel, inhumane reminder of past mistakes,” said Tram Nguyen, the group’s executive director. “Importantly, today’s ruling validates entrenched interests in the Virginia General Assembly bent on silencing a large swath of Black Virginians in order to maximize their political power.”
But just hours after the decision, McAuliffe vowed to push back by signing clemency grants for the state’s ex-offenders one by one.
“The struggle for civil rights has always been a long and difficult one, but the fight goes on,” he wrote. “I remain committed to moving past our Commonwealth’s history of injustice to embrace an honest process for restoring the rights of our citizens, and I believe history and the vast majority of Virginians are on our side.”
more...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/23/3801355/virginia-felon-voting-update/
145 replies
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555 hours?
about 9 weeks of 60 hours each? that's a lot of signing
CNN resident idiot Scottie Nell Hughes just bemoaned the circumventing of the court ruling. har.
watch her video, whose ending slide is at the bottom:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/scottie-nell-hughes-announces-new-gig-at-cnn-in-most-ostentatious-way-possible/
She's not even STAFF--she's a contract worker for the duration of general election season. She's mainly for "color" because she knows the Trump organization. They may use her to get to someone on the inside, on occasion, for deep background or what-have-you.
As for Terry, if use of the AUTOPEN is legal (and I don't see why not, so long as there's a document with his signature saying "Issue clemency declarations to this list of people"
, all he needs is a crew of staff (with the equivalent of what's called in the military "By Direction" authority) to check each document and maybe put an initial next to the autopen signature.
tomatoes are going TRUMP on me!
Provided they aren't violating civil rights laws, they are allowed to disenfranchise certain people with cause.
It's just a coincidence that an overwhelming disparate number of POC are disenfranchised.
In Richardson v Ramirez, 418 U. S. 24 (1974), at a time when conservatives held a 6-3 majority, the Court upheld felon disenfranchisement by a 6-2 vote (two of the liberals dissented, while the third, Douglas, didn't reach the merits).
Justice Rehnquist's majority opinion left undisturbed prior holdings that a restriction on the franchise generally must meet a "compelling state interest." His opinion hinged on his interpretation of the interrelationship between the Equal Protection Clause and section 2 of the 14th Amendment:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
The heart of his opinion, from pp. 54-55:
the exclusion of felons from the vote has an affirmative sanction in § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, a sanction which was not present in the case of the other restrictions on the franchise which were invalidated in the cases on which respondents rely. We hold that the understanding of those who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, as reflected in the express language of § 2 and in the historical and judicial interpretation of the Amendment's applicability to state laws disenfranchising felons, is of controlling significance in distinguishing such laws from those other state limitations on the franchise which have been held invalid under the Equal Protection Clause by this Court. We do not think that the Court's refusal to accept Mr. Justice Harlan's position in his dissents in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 377 U. S. 589 (1964), and Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89, 380 U. S. 97 (1965), that § 2 is the only part of the Amendment dealing with voting rights, dictates an opposite result. We need not go nearly so far as Mr. Justice Harlan would to reach our conclusion, for we may rest on the demonstrably sound proposition that § 1, in dealing with voting rights as it does, could not have been meant to bar outright a form of disenfranchisement which was expressly exempted from the less drastic sanction of reduced representation which § 2 imposed for other forms of disenfranchisement. Nor can we accept respondents' argument that, because § 2 was made part of the Amendment
"'largely through the accident of political exigency, rather than through the relation which it bore to the other sections of the Amendment,'"
we must not look to it for guidance in interpreting § 1. It is as much a part of the Amendment as any of the other sections, and how it became a part of the Amendment is less important than what it says and what it means.
"'largely through the accident of political exigency, rather than through the relation which it bore to the other sections of the Amendment,'"
we must not look to it for guidance in interpreting § 1. It is as much a part of the Amendment as any of the other sections, and how it became a part of the Amendment is less important than what it says and what it means.
IOW, the general "compelling interest" rule announced in prior rulings did not apply to felon disenfranhcisement. Justice Marshall's dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Brennan, disagreed with this interpretation. From pp. 73-74 (footnotes omitted):
The historical purpose for § 2 itself is, however, relatively clear and, in my view, dispositive of this case. The Republicans who controlled the 39th Congress were concerned that the additional congressional representation of the Southern States which would result from the abolition of slavery might weaken their own political dominance. There were two alternatives available -- either to limit southern representation, which was unacceptable on a long-term basis, or to insure that southern Negroes, sympathetic to the Republican cause, would be enfranchised; but an explicit grant of suffrage to Negroes was thought politically unpalatable at the time. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment was the resultant compromise. It put Southern States to a choice -- enfranchise Negro voters or lose congressional representation.
The political motivation behind § 2 was a limited one. It had little to do with the purposes of the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment. As one noted commentator explained:
"'It became a part of the Fourteenth Amendment largely through the accident of political exigency, rather than through the relation which it bore to the other sections of the Amendment.'"
"
I)t seems quite impossible to conclude that there was a clear and deliberate understanding in the House that § 2 was the sole source of national authority to protect voting rights, or that it expressly recognized the states' power to deny or abridge the right to vote."
It is clear that § 2 was not intended, and should not be construed, to be a limitation on the other sections of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 2 provides a special remedy -- reduced representation -- to cure a particular form of electoral abuse -- the disenfranchisement of Negroes. There is no indication that the framers of the provisions intended that special penalty to be the exclusive remedy for all forms of electoral discrimination. This Court has repeatedly rejected that rationale. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964); Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965).
Rather, a discrimination to which the penalty provision of § 2 is inapplicable must still be judged against the Equal Protection Clause of § 1 to determine whether judicial or congressional remedies should be invoked.
The political motivation behind § 2 was a limited one. It had little to do with the purposes of the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment. As one noted commentator explained:
"'It became a part of the Fourteenth Amendment largely through the accident of political exigency, rather than through the relation which it bore to the other sections of the Amendment.'"
"
I)t seems quite impossible to conclude that there was a clear and deliberate understanding in the House that § 2 was the sole source of national authority to protect voting rights, or that it expressly recognized the states' power to deny or abridge the right to vote."
It is clear that § 2 was not intended, and should not be construed, to be a limitation on the other sections of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 2 provides a special remedy -- reduced representation -- to cure a particular form of electoral abuse -- the disenfranchisement of Negroes. There is no indication that the framers of the provisions intended that special penalty to be the exclusive remedy for all forms of electoral discrimination. This Court has repeatedly rejected that rationale. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964); Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965).
Rather, a discrimination to which the penalty provision of § 2 is inapplicable must still be judged against the Equal Protection Clause of § 1 to determine whether judicial or congressional remedies should be invoked.
Hopefully, with a new liberal majority on the Court, Richardson v Ramirez will be overruled.
