Less than a week after Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell endorsed it, a proposal to allow automatic restoration of voting rights to nonviolent felons was shot down today by a Republican-dominated House of Delegates subcommittee.
Neither McDonnell’s support nor that of Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was enough to salvage the measure, which has perennially gone down to defeat in the House.
Del. Greg Habeeb, R-Salem, the chief patron of McDonnell’s proposal, drew only one favorable vote from the subcommittee, from Del. Algie Howell, D-Norfolk.
This is stupid with two o’s — stoopid.
Look fellas… you can’t simultaneously cry out that we’re the party of civil liberties when we’re stripping them away at the same time. Even a compromise where rights would be automatically restored unless certain cases were selectively withdrawn by the governor — that would have made sense.
Stupid move, guys. As in, no one was thinking. Forget the political consequences — think about this from a civil liberties perspective, folks.
Stupid, stupid, stupid move…