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Leaders of Virginia’s House and Senate filed a lawsuit Monday in a bid to reverse Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s order to restore voting rights to 206,000 felons.
The lawsuit presents a complex constitutional question with the urgency of a presidential election-year battle. It asks the state’s highest court to weigh in quickly so that recently reinstated ex-cons can be stripped from the voter rolls ahead of November.
House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment (R-James City) said Monday that they were filing the lawsuit in state Supreme Court on behalf of themselves and four other Virginia voters.
It comes in response to McAuliffe’s executive order to restore voting rights to all felons who had completed their sentences and been released from supervised probation or parole. McAuliffe said his move would advance civil rights and help former convicts fully reenter society.
“Once you have served your time, and you’ve finished up your supervised parole, I want you back as a full citizen of the commonwealth,” McAuliffe said. “I want you to have a job. I want you paying taxes, and you can’t be a second-class citizen.”
Virginia is one of only a few states that permanently disenfranchises felons.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/gop-sues-to-strip-209k-felons-from-va-voter-rolls/2016/05/23/ef2587a8-20e4-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html
