Political observers say that the state of Virginia likely will play a major role in November’s presidential election, particularly after Gov. Terry McAuliffe used his executive power last month to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 of the state’s convicted felons.
And that may be a good sign for Hillary Clinton, who officially clinched the Democratic nomination this week and will now go on to challenge Republican businessman Donald J. Trump in the general election.
Despite her strong support for her husband’s 1994 crime bill — which some say helped to spur the mass incarceration movement in the United States — and for once referring to young gang members as “super-predators,” Clinton has been barnstorming the nation, calling for criminal justice system reform and, in the process, has been trying to win over skeptical African-American voters.
“Something’s wrong when Black kids get arrested for petty crimes but White kids who do the same things don’t,” Clinton said in a rousing speech delivered in April at the convention of the National Action Network, the civil rights group founded in 1991 by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“Mass incarceration is just one part of a broader set of interlocking challenges, because years of underinvestment and neglect have hollowed out many predominantly African-American communities. There aren’t enough jobs and poverty persists from generation to generation. Not enough families, still today, have access to the education they deserve, the affordable housing they need to live in.”
With a stroke of a pen, McAuliffe’s use of executive power was likely done in part to help Clinton, a longtime ally, and Democrats in general. McAuliffe served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005.
Long considered a swing state, the governor’s executive order will permit all Virginia felons who have served their prison time and completed parole or probation to register to vote. Experts say that more than half of Virginia’s convicted felons are African-Americans.
