Virginia Republicans to Challenge Restoration of Felon Voting Rights
- By ZACHARY ROTH | NBC News
- May 2, 2016
- 1 min read
Virginia Republicans said Monday they're planning to challenge Gov. Terry McAuliffe's recent executive order that restored the right to vote to more than 200,000 former felons in perhaps the most pivotal state in the presidential race.
GOP leaders in the state legislature announced that they've hired Charles Cooper, a former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, to lead the effort. They said McAuliffe's order exceeded the governor's constitutional powers.
"Governor McAuliffe's flagrant disregard for the Constitution of Virginia and the rule of law must not go unchecked," Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment Jr. said in a statement. "We have retained Mr. Cooper to examine the legal options to remedy this Washington-style overreach by the executive branch."
Responding to the announcement, Brian Coy, a spokesman for McAuliffe, a Democrat, said: "The Governor is disappointed that Republicans would go to such lengths to continue locking people who have served their time out of their democracy. While Republicans may have found a Washington lawyer for their political lawsuit, they still have yet to articulate any specific constitutional objections to the Governor exercising a power that Article V Section 12 clearly grants him."
That appears to refer to the following language in the state's constitution: "The governor shall have power … to remove political disabilities consequent upon conviction for offenses committed prior or subsequent to the adoption of this Constitution."
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