Virginia is only one of three states that completely denies ex-felons the right to vote, but that might change if one NOVA Delegate gets his way.
Virginia is only one of three states that completely denies ex-felons the right to vote, but that might change if one NOVA Delegate gets his way.
The right for an ex-felon to vote has been a particularly hot topic here in the Commonwealth since Gov. Terry McAuliffe attempted to restore voting rights to hundreds of thousands of ex-felons over the summer.
At the heart of McAuliffe’s move is a line in the Virginia Constitution which states:
“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.”
While past governors like Bob McDonnell had also taken steps to restore rights to ex-felons, McAuliffe has been using the line at an unprecedented pace. He tried to execute a blanket restoration to about 200,000 ex-felons earlier this summer which was challenged by the state GOP and struck down by the State Supreme Court.
McAuliffe switched tactics and is now aiming to restore those rights individually, one signature at a time, and today the State Supreme Court Ok’ed the maneuver despite a second challenge by the GOP.
Either way, it seems like a new move from NOVA progressive Del. Marcus Simon (top image) hopes to remove the need for such action all together.
In an interview with RVAMag, Simon said restoring felon’s voting rights has been a passion for him since his freshmen session at the General Assembly back in 2014 where his first floor speech involved adding more people to the office that handles processing rights restoration requests.
“It’s always been about social justice as far as I was concerned,” he said, pointing to the idea that reintegrating ex-felons like this helps in the process of redeeming them and welcoming them back into broader society.
“If you continue to marginalize [ex-felons]… you’re asking for them to circulate back into the system and it’s not humane or efficient for the government,” he said
But beyond the reintroduction to society, Simon said the rule remains in the state constitution from a time when the rights of minorities were suppressed on purpose.
“[There is] history we’ve got here in Virginia of who gets charged for felonies and what is deemed a felony and the fact is that it has a disproportionate impact on minority communities and people of color,” he said. “This language is a relic of Virginia’s 1902 ‘Jim Crow’ Constitution, which included a laundry list of those not deemed fit to vote, a list that included ‘idiots,’ ‘insane persons,’ and ‘paupers’ as well as those who had participated in duel.”
“Call me politically correct if you will, but I think Virginia has come a long way since then,” he said.
Ravi Perry Ph. D, an Associate Professor of Political Science at VCU and President of the National Association for Ethnic Studies, agrees with Simon’s assertion about the rule’s roots. Perry wondered how state Republicans, who champion an unchanged constitution, would support a law which has no constitutional origin.
“To claim yourself as the party of Lincoln, to claim you’re interested in constitutions and democracy… and yet you’re against having people vote who have served their time, who have paid their dues to society, and say they can’t vote because of what they’ve done in their past is simply unAmerican,” Perry said.
Though Republicans have a statistical reason to be concerned – Democrats have outpaced Republicans for years when it comes to new eligible voters. Whether or not those eligible voters actually vote is an issue in of itself – but for Perry, assuming ex-felons will vote with the Democratic party is flawed as well.
“We don’t know how those people will vote,” he said. “But what we do know… usually the party or people who introduce them to the political system through registration… they seem to have a leg up… and that helps the argument that might help the democratic party in terms of what the votes might look like in an election. But all of that is speculation and hyperbole – this should not be a partisan issue because voting is a constitutional right.”
Turning voting into a partisan issue is something Simon takes issue with as well.
“That’s how democracy is supposed to work,” he said. “The more people who vote, the more reflective government you’re going to have… if it is in fact the case that when more people participate, Democrats do better, that means we speak to the values of more people… that’s how this is supposed to work.”
Because Simon’s bill is a constitutional amendment the process for passage is different too – it’s got to make it through the House and Senate twice, divided by a gubernatorial election, and then be put to a state-wide referendum.
But that doesn’t mean it’s got any increased chance of passaged. While Simon didn’t admit the move faces certain doom against a Republican controlled legislature, he did say he was happy to continue the conversation and offer a solution to the problems the GOP has with McAuliffe’s tactics.
“If we’re going to have a conversation about what the constitution ought to have to say about felon’s voting rights we’re going to have a complete discussion… maybe this doesn’t belong in the constitution at all,” he said. “Maybe we just leave this to the legislature…”
