Gov Cuomo Gives 35,000 Felons Right to Vote in New York Mere Months Before Election
When the felon vote is crucial, it’s got to be a Democrat primary.
Showing he knows where the real power rests in his party, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week opened the door to tens of thousands of ex-cons on parole in the Empire State to vote despite a state law that forbids it.
And he did it in pure Obama-Democrat style.
According to the Democrat & Chronicle of Rochester, Cuomo signed an executive order Wednesday that would grant conditional pardons to felons who’ve been released from prison but still are under court supervision through the parole system. New York law doesn’t allow felons to vote until their parole has been served, but Cuomo’s pardon would get criminals around that.
Naturally, Cuomo made the announcement at the annual convention of the “Rev.” Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, a radical-left group that this year, according to New York’s Amsterdam News, attracted liberal luminaries like former Attorney General Eric Holder, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and California Sen. Kamala Harris.
“In this state, when you’re released from prison and you’re on parole, you still don’t have the right to vote,” Cuomo told Sharpton’s following (which probably has more first-hand experience with felony conviction law than most political gatherings).
“Now how can that be? You did your time. You paid your debt. You’re released, but you still don’t have a right to vote.”
It might sound odd that a man who’s been governor for seven years doesn’t seem to have already realized what the state’s laws said about voting until now, but it’s a good bet it’s got a lot to do with the “battle of the lefties” primary challenge he’s facing from former “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon.
Being an Obama-style Democrat, Cuomo made the move after New York’s state Senate blocked a similar bill, according to Fox News.
New York state Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox called Cuomo’s order a “power grab,” according to The New York Times.
New York’s Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, a Republican, was disgusted.
“This will give rapists and murderers voting privileges that they shouldn’t have and they don’t deserve,” Flanagan said, according to the Democrat & Chronicle.
Mike Long, chairman of the state’s Conservative Party called out Cuomo for running roughshod over the law just to win an election.
“I think what he is doing is unconstitutional, number one,” Long said. “Number two, I think he’s pandering to the extreme left-wing elements of our nation.”
Notice that Long didn’t say “left-wing elements of our state.” This story is bigger than that. Cuomo is widely thought to have national ambitions and is a potential contender for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020.
But first, Cuomo needs to win another term in office, and to do that, he needs to first beat a former TV actress in his party’s June 26 primary. And to do that, he needs to pander to convicted criminals with an Obama-style executive order that makes legitimate lawmakers disgusted.
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