Virginia Republicans are considering efforts to block Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe’s new executive order restoring the voting rights of the state’s former felons. McAuliffe’s order, announced on Friday, would give nearly 206,000 violent and nonviolent convicts who have served their time the ability vote.
Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Bill Howell, a Republican from the Fredericksburg area, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD there was little the legislature could do to stop the executive action. The state’s constitution, he said, allows governors broad clemency power. But, Howell said, that power doesn’t include blanket clemency in the manner of McAuliffe’s order. Some Republicans are considering pursuing a legal challenge to the order.
