Virginia’s Supreme Court announced it will hold a special session in July to hear the lawsuit brought by Republican state legislators challenging Gov. Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s (D) move to restore the voting rights of convicted felons in the state. The court will hear the case July 19, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, after Republicans urged the justices in court filings for a decision by August 25 ahead of November’s election.
Republicans in the state were infuriated by McAuliffe’s April executive order to give some 200,000 convicted felons their voting rights back, dismissing it as a gambit to help get Hillary Clinton elected.
Days later they announced they would be filing a lawsuit challenging the governor’s constitutional authority to sign such an order. The lawsuit — filed at the end of May by state House Speaker William Howell (R) and state Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment (R) along with four other Virginia voters — claimed the governor can only restore voting rights to felons on a case-by-case basis, instead of en masse, as McAuliffe’s order does.
In a response to Wednesday’s announcement of a special court session, Howell said in a statement,“We are pleased the Supreme Court recognizes the urgency of our challenge to Governor McAuliffe’s unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of executive power.”
Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D), who is defending the governor’s actions, was not against holding a special session, but argued in court filings that the case should not be heard in June, since Republicans had a month to pull their lawsuit together, the Richmond Times-Dispatch said.
