Executive power.  It used to be reserved for Governors and Presidents to adjust programs and bills for the practical working out of the details. Now, it has become a supreme leader power grab.  Like no other time in our history, the executive branch –in both states and at the federal level, has decided they don’t need Congress or elected officials to represent the people.  Executive orders bypass other pesky lawmakers elected by you and me, and give these commanders the ability to fulfill their personal feelings and agenda and “make it so” with the stroke of a pen. Terry McAuliffe, Democratic operative turned Virginia Governor, is the latest to write his own laws about voting eligibility, giving 200,000 convicted felons the right to vote again.  Knowing the race for President was tight in 2012, this cushion he provided the Democratic candidate (presumably his former employer, Clinton) should help his party capture Virginia in the upcoming elections.

From The New York Times:

View Comments (0)

Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia used his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing his Republican-run Legislature. The action overturns a Civil War-era provision in the state’s Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans.

The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole to register to vote. Most are African-Americans, a core constituency of Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe’s political party.

Amid intensifying national attention over harsh sentencing policies that have disproportionately affected African-Americans, governors and legislatures around the nation have been debating — and often fighting over — moves to restore voting rights for convicted felons.

In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin, a newly elected Republican, recently overturned an order enacted by his Democratic predecessor that was similar to the one Mr. McAuliffe signed Friday. In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed a measure to restore voting rights to convicted felons, but Democrats in the state legislature overrode him in February; an estimated 44,000 former prisoners who are on probation are now eligible to register to vote as a result.