VA High Court Slams Gov’s Executive Overreach

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s unprecedented decision to restore voting rights to over 200,000 felons, ruling the move violates Virginia’s constitution.

“Never before have any of the prior 71 Virginia Governors issued a clemency order of any kind — including pardons, reprieves, commutations, and restoration orders — to a class of unnamed felons without regard for the nature of the crimes or any other individual circumstances relevant to the request,” Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons wrote in the majority opinion.

“I am prepared to back up that faith with my executive pen,” McAuliffe said.

“To be sure, no governor of this Commonwealth, until now, has even suggested that such a power exists,” he continued. The Virginia Republicans who challenged McAuliffe’s illegal action hailed the ruling as a victory for the rule of law.

McAuliffe’s blatant exercise in executive overreach and open disregard for Virginia’s constitution are typical of the modern, Obama-Clinton Democratic Party.

“The Supreme Court of Virginia delivered a major victory for the Constitution, the rule of law and the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Virginia House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., said in a statement.

“Our nation was founded on the principles of limited government and separation of powers. Those principles have once again withstood assault from the executive branch. This opinion is a sweeping rebuke of the governor’s unprecedented assertion of executive authority.”

Claiming powers to which they are not entitled seems to have become part and parcel of being a Democrat of late. The power to ignore the Second Amendment, the power to flout immigration laws, the power to legislate from both the desk and the bench — even the power to set up a private, personal email server in one’s basement to transmit and receive classified information.

McAuliffe’s opportunistic transgression of constitutional authority masquerading as an appeal to social justice fits a pattern well established by the Obama administration.

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Upon issuing his original order, McAuliffe enthusiastically played racial politics, likening the law prohibiting felons from voting — the law he was violating — to Jim Crow. “There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans — we should remedy it,” he said in April, 2016.

Republican opponents, however, said McAuliffe’s move was not only a gross violation of the bounds of his authority, but also an obvious attempt to increase the numbers of Democratic voters before the election.

But regardless of whether McAuliffe believes his own progressive platitudes or is merely an opportunist, the court’s decision is a major blow to his agenda, and has significant implications for the election. Losing an extra 200,000 voters likely inclined to vote for the Democratic Party in the election is a significant blow to the Clinton campaign.

McAuliffe, however, has said he continues to follow the radical example set by the Obama administration and his good friend Hillary Clinton, and is refusing to let an inconvenient thing like the rule of law get in the way of his radical agenda.

“My faith remains strong in all of our citizens to choose their leaders, and I am prepared to back up that faith with my executive pen,” he said.