Mississippi ruling reflects Virginia’s history of felon voter disenfranchisement

A poll worker in Richmond holds an “I Voted” sticker. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)

Republican officials in Virginia and nationwide – recognizing the ongoing shift in racial demographics across America – surely would overhaul their messaging, I reasoned, to become more welcoming toward African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and others.

The GOP would favor increasing voter registration totals, I thought. It would work diligently to persuade more folks to its side with an inclusive, less-accusatory agenda. Gone would be the days of demonizing people of color on conservative mouthpieces like Fox “News.”

After all, gaining just a tiny segment of non-white voters should ensure repeated electoral victories, especially in presidential contests. Such a strategy would allow the party to actually win the popular vote more often this century. There would be no need to manufacture barriers to the ballot box for groups that usually support Democrats. 

What a fool I was.

Republicans want to keep power and pretend they’ve earned a mandate, even though in 2022 they garnered a small majority of votes nationwide in the U.S. House of Representatives. Even though at least 29 states have passed 94 restrictive voting laws since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

The latest evidence of Republicans erecting hurdles for would-be voters comes from the federal judiciary. In July the “most conservative appellate court” in the country – as Mother Jones put it – reinstated a Jim Crow-era felon disenfranchisement law in Mississippi.

Virginia’s own 1901-02 Constitution mimics the racist precepts in Mississippi’s; they’re a perpetual stain on the commonwealth.  We’re the only state that permanently strips voting rights from convicted felons unless the governor restores them. Virginia utilized now-defunct poll taxes and literacy tests, too, that targeted Black voters.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just upheld a Mississippi law dating to 1890 that permanently prevents residents there from voting if they’ve been convicted of any of about 100 crimes. They include such nonviolent offenses as timber larceny, writing a bad check and bigamy.

The 13-member majority overturned a three-judge panel of its own court that said the law violated the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Revealing the ongoing politicization of the federal judiciary, all but one of the majority judges were appointed by Republican presidents. Six judges appointed by Democrats dissented.

The law was upheld despite the fact it was adopted as part of a state Constitution designed to maintain white supremacy. “We came here to exclude the Negro,” said Solomon S. Calhoon, the constitutional convention president, more than a century ago. “Nothing short of this will answer.”

Felons in Mississippi are disproportionately Black. However – as I’ve noted previously – Black people and other minorities are treated more harshly than white people are for the same crimes. The Mother Jones article reported that from 1994 to 2017, the law disenfranchised nearly 50,000 people. African Americans comprise 38% of the state’s population – the highest percentage among U.S. states.

Still, it’s curious Mississippi is so vengeful, given Republicans rarely face serious challenges in the state.

The last time the Magnolia State picked a Democrat for president was fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter in 1976. For the U.S. Senate, it last picked a Democrat in 1982. Rep. Bennie Thompson, serving a district including Jackson, the state capital, is the lone Democrat among four members in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“It’s probably the … most racialized state in the nation,” David Lublin, professor and chair of the department of government at American University, told me during an interview. Lublin wrote “The Republican South: Democratization and Partisan Change.”

The post-Reconstruction constitutions in the South aren’t badges of honor, he noted: “These were not adopted for nice reasons.”

That’s putting it mildly.

Lublin said because we live in such a highly polarized nation, both Democrats and Republicans fight “tooth and nail” over any advantage – though Democrats might be on the moral side of the voting rights argument.

“No one likes to give up advantages,” he added. 

Here in Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has restored voting and other civil rights to 7,575 people, his spokesman Christian Martinez said. The state Constitution requires him to make “restoration decisions on an individualized, case-by-case basis,” Martinez told me by email.

Lawsuits have been filed against the administration because of the opaqueness of the process.

Martinez wouldn’t answer whether Youngkin supports a constitutional amendment that would allow automatic restoration. House Republicans killed such a legislative attempt after he took office in 2022.

The total number of restorations by Youngkin is dwarfed by those approved by his predecessors, who made the system more streamlined. Republican Bob McDonnell signed off on more than 10,000. Democrat Terry McAuliffe approved more than 173,000, and  Democrat Ralph Northam restored rights to more than 126,000 people.

Is it political, since so many Black and Latino voters support Democrats? Yes.

It’s also the right thing to do to re-engage Virginia residents regarding their citizenship duties. Voting gives people a stake in their communities. Given the racist history of felon disenfranchisement in Virginia, legislators should support the amendment process and allow people released from prison to regain their rights automatically.

I know this is a tough sell for Republican lawmakers, in Virginia and elsewhere, who value power over equity. I’m probably delusional.

Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.