RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A bipartisan group of 43 commonwealth’s attorneys are fighting Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s restoration of voting and other rights for more than 200,000 ex-felons.
In a brief filed Friday with the Virginia Supreme Court, the prosecutors said each ex-felon’s rights restoration should be handled individually, rather than en masse, in order to avoid allowing unfit ex-felons the right to own a gun or sit on a jury.
“The governor’s blanket restoration order makes no distinction among felons, treating the nonviolent felon the same as the cold-blooded killer, and the one-time offender the same as the career criminal,” the brief said. “The governor’s order thus hinders commonwealth’s attorneys’ ability to discharge their duties.”
Once an ex-felon’s political rights are restored, he or she can petition the court to restore the right to own a gun. Commonwealth’s attorneys can weigh in on whether gun rights should be restored. By making more than 200,000 Virginians eligible to have their gun rights restored all at once, McAuliffe put an unfairly heavy workload on already overstretched offices of commonwealth’s attorneys, the brief said.
They said properly vetting ex-felons to sit on juries will also be unfairly taxing and alter the well-established process of picking juries in the state.
State GOP leaders filed a lawsuit in the Virginia Supreme Court last month, saying McAuliffe, a Democrat, violated the separation of powers by effectively suspending the state’s ban on voting by felons. Republicans said McAuliffe is ignoring decades of practice, which has made clear that governors can restore voting rights only on a case-by-case basis.
The lawsuit is being brought by House Speaker William Howell and Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment along with four other Virginia voters.
They’re asking the justices to prohibit election officials from registering felons and to cancel all such registrations since April 22.
McAuliffe’s administration has fiercely defended the action and says it’s confident the executive order will withstand the challenge. The governor says there’s nothing in Virginia’s Constitution that limits him to restoring rights only on an individualized basis. He accused Republicans of trying to preserve “a policy of disenfranchisement” that has predominantly impacted African-Americans.
McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said the alleged administrative burden prosecutors describe in their brief “is not an excuse for marginalizing more than 200,000 people.”
“The governor’s order is the right thing to do,” Coy said.
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