Not content with his recent proclamation declaring April to be Confederate History Month, Virginia governor has taken another, more disturbing step in his campaign to bring back the good ol' days of Jim Crow, announcing plans to force nonviolent felons petitioning to have their voting rights restored to submit an essay outlining their contributions to society and listing the "reasons why you believe the restoration of your civil rights is justified," along with supporting documentation. The essay and supporting documentation provided by petitioners will be subjected to an arbitrary and undefined evaluation process that harkens back to the literacy tests once used to block African-Americans from exercising their voting rights.
As it is, Virginia is one of the worst states in the Union with regard to disenfranchisement of ex-felons. The state is one of only two that disenfranchise everyone with a criminal conviction for life, unless they apply for and receive clemency from the state's governor. Virginia's disenfranchisement law is itself a relic of the Jim Crow era:
During the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-02, delegate Carter Glass (later a prominent U.S. Senator) described the criminal disenfranchisement provision as part of a plan to "eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than 5 years, so that in no single county...will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government."
The law certainly has had its intended effect. More than 300,000 people have lost the right to vote for life in Virginia. One in five African-Americans, and one in four African-American men, is permanently disenfranchised in the Commonwealth. African Americans make up one fifth of Virginia's population, but over half of those denied the right to vote are African-American.
The application to get one's right to vote back has always been onerous in Virginia, and the number of people "approved" each year is tiny. Former Governor Tim Kaine approved the most applications in history, a whopping total that amounted to less than 2 percent of the disenfranchised population.
Less than 2 percent may not seem like a whole lot, and it's not. But the petition process that McDonnell intends to impose on applicants in Virginia seems designed to make an already bad situation exponentially worse. What's worse, there are already signs that the petition process could be used to impose religious requirements on applicants seeking reinstatement of their voting rights:
In coming weeks, McDonnell will start requiring nonviolent offenders to write a letter to him explaining the circumstances of their arrest; their efforts to get a job, seek an education and participate in church and community activities; and why they believe their rights should be restored. Some applicants already have been notified that letters will be required.
It's one thing to pine away for the "good ol' days" of the Confederacy, but another thing altogether to attempt to bring back the dark days of the Jim Crow era. We must demand that the Justice Department intervene in Virginia and fully enforce the Voting Rights Act, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Virginians who have been unfairly and unconstitutionally deprived of their right to vote.