RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit challenging a provision in Virginia’s state constitution can move forward.
The judge rejected the state’s request to dismiss a suit which argued against a section of the state constitution that automatically disenfranchises convicted felons. This suit was filed by Protect Democracy and the ACLU of Virginia on behalf of several Virginia residents.
This automatic disenfranchisement is something advocates for the suit, such as the ACLU of Virginia, believe the state has gotten wrong for far too long.
The lawsuit is centered around an 1870s law known as the Virginia Readmission Act. The law, passed at that time by Congress, set out the conditions for how Confederate states could rejoin the United States.
“One of those terms is that these states were not allowed to manipulate their constitutions and their criminal codes to disenfranchise people for new felonies, other than those that existed at that time,” said Vishal Agraharkar, Supervising Attorney for the ACLU of Virginia.
According to the ACLU, at the time of the Virginia Readmission Act, this included only a few so-called “common law” felonies, including rape and murder.
“The state of Virginia has been openly defying that law for well over a century by stripping anyone convicted of any felony whatsoever of their voting rights permanently,” said Jared Davidson, Counsel for Protect Democracy.
These legal proceedings began after Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) changed the way convicted felons could have their rights restored.
The Virginia state constitution gives the governor sole discretion to restore someone’s voting rights. Previous governors, including Youngkin’s predecessor Ralph Northam (D), granted certain felons their rights automatically upon release — while Youngkin has decided to review each case individually.
“I think folks ought to focus on the question of whether we ought to disenfranchise people who [happened] to [commit] crimes,” said Professor Henry Chambers of the University of Richmond. “That is at some level the question that needs to be asked among Virginians. Is this the kind of thing we want to do in general?”
Notably, this ruling is just on the motion to dismiss the lawsuit — not a final ruling on the suit itself.
