Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has teamed up with organizations fueled by George Soros cash to push felon voting rights the Washington Times is reporting. The Governor’s office hasn’t merely advanced the cause of the groups funded by the Tides Foundation, but has even coordinated with them to push for automatic felon voting.
Mr. McDonnell, a Republican, has been seeking input from the Advancement Project throughout the evaluation process, said Edgardo Cortes, director of the Advancement Project’s Virginia Voting Rights Restoration campaign.
The project also is assisting to help the state with its lack of a comprehensive database by providing a hotline for felons to call and get their contact information relayed to the governor’s office.
Felon voting is a top priority of the organized Left. It cost Norm Coleman a Senate seat in Minnesota. Nor is it moral. Those who have flouted the law have no moral claim to writing the law.
Why Governor McDonnell has adopted the cause of George Soros is a mystery. Perhaps it is ignorance and naiveté about how election process issues are the top priority of the organized Left to reshape the country. Perhaps he has never heard of the Democracy Initiative. Perhaps he has an advisor who is both naïve and ignorant of how election process rules alter outcomes and eventually policy.
Maybe he stupidly thinks it will help him win higher office with Democrat or moderate voters. Guess again. As I wrote at the Washington Times:
These groups also have a tendency to cast aside any short-term Republican allies they can trick. Friendship, praise and higher office cannot be gained by capitulation to their agenda. Hopefully, Virginia Republicans will realize there is only peril in supporting the cause of criminals and the Democratic Party.
Whatever the cause, this is sure to damage McDonnell among conservatives, Tea Party Virginians and GOP stalwarts. Count me among them. When he first ran in 2009, my entire family appeared in a campaign event devoted to education as a backdrop. Lucky they came, because they were the only one’s there for him. That won’t happen again.
Others have floated the George Ryan theory.
Ryan was a Republican Governor in Illinois who suddenly became an opponent of the death penalty, right before he faced criminal charges – and a jury.
If you haven’t been paying attention, McDonnell is facing his own gathering storm. A federal criminal grand jury is investigating corruption and graft by his family. Most recently, it was reported his wife was jetted off to New York City for a lavish, Imedla Marcos-style shopping spree, courtesy of a businessman who had a close (and beneficial) relationship with the governor.
Those restored felon voting rights might come in handy.
UPDATE: McDonnell tells the Virginian Pilot that he is “unsure” whether Virginia has outgrown the need for federal oversight of Virginia elections under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Virginia is the first southern state to elected an African-American governor.
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