Scholar Nails McAuliffe For Distortioning Court Ruling

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe was chastised in the Richmond-Times Dispatch for “gross misrepresentation” of a Virginia state Supreme Court’s ruling this weekend.

Professor Kevin C. Walsh of the University of Richmond School of Law took McAuliffe to task for his relentless attacks on the Virginia high court, after a four-justice majority struck down his executive order restoring voting rights to nearly 200,000 Virginia convicts. Individuals convicted of felonies in Virginia are permanently barred from casting ballots. The order was derided by Republicans in the state legislature, who saw the order as an attempt to enroll tens of thousands of new Democratic voters in a swing state months before a major election. McAuliffe is a close ally of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

In striking down the order, the state Supreme Court ruled that such a broad and indiscriminate extension of clemency was not imagined by the clemency power in the state Constitution. They further ruled that the order infringed on the state legislature’s prerogative to define the rights of convicted felons.

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