Voting rights rally July 19 to coincide with hearing on Va. restoration of rights case
7/13/2016, 7:19 a.m.
A Stand Up for Voting Rights rally will take place 8 a.m. July 19 at the Bell Tower in Capitol Square at 9th and Franklin streets.
The rally will be followed by voter registration, redistricting and election protection workshops from 9 a.m. to noon.
The rally, sponsored by a coalition of more than 20 orga- nizations including the NAACP, the ACLU of Virginia, Latino Justice and the Virginia AFL-CIO, is designed to show public support as the Virginia Supreme Court holds a special session
to hear arguments on Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s use of executive power to restore voting and other political rights to more than 200,000 felons.
The Supreme Court session begins 9 a.m. July 19, at the Supreme Court Building, 100 N. 9th St., across from the Bell Tower and Capitol Square.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has urged the court to reject the Republican-led legal challenge to the governor’s power to restore voting rights en masse.
Among Mr. Herring’s arguments to dismiss the lawsuit is the Virginia Constitution’s language that the governor’s authority to restore rights to a group of people “may not be controlled or restricted by either the legislative branch or the judicial branch.” Mr. Herring wrote that authority has been in place since at least the 1870 Virginia Constitution, even if every other governor has ignored the authority and restored rights on a case-by-case basis.
The GOP litigants believe rights restoration must be done on a case-by-case basis.
