top of page

Welcome to Crime and Justice News

Citing Trump, Virginia Legislature Moves Forward Measure To Restore Felon Voting Rights

Crime and Justice News

Virginia is the only state that permanently disenfranchises someone convicted of a felony and requires them to individually petition the governor for rights restoration.  People who serve time for felonies automatically have their rights restored in New York, where Donald Trump was convicted in May of 34 felonies for falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to an adult-film star while running for president in 2016. In Florida, where the president-elect is a resident, nonviolent felons automatically have their rights restored once they pay all fines and restitution. So, when the Virginia House of Delegates on Tuesday took up a proposed constitutional amendment to automatically restore felon voting rights, Trump was bound to come up in debate, the Washington Post reports.  “In six days a felon will become president of this nation,” Del. Marcia S. “Cia” Price (D-Newport News) said as Republicans pushed back against the measure. “The glaring hypocrisy is not lost on us.”


Del. Joshua G. Cole (D-Stafford), who is Black, delivered a thunderous speech on the Jim Crow origins of felon disenfranchisement, which was written into the Virginia Constitution in 1902 with the express intent of preventing as many African Americans from voting as possible.

“This is not an issue for left and right. This is an issue of repealing racist traditions,” Cole said.

Four Republicans wound up joining every Democrat in supporting the measure, which passed the house. There’s still a long road ahead for the multiyear process of amending the state constitution. But with all 100 seats in the House of Delegates on the ballot in November, Tuesday’s debates were a curtain-raiser to the fall campaigns.

106 views

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

bottom of page