RICHMOND -- Linwood Christian, 43, a nonviolent felon who left prison in 2002, thought he had done everything he needed to have his civil rights restored when he filled out a simple one-page application in January.

But two months later, he received a notice from Virginia requiring that he write a personal letter to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) explaining why he thought his rights should be restored after a pair of felony convictions.

The busy single dad says he was frustrated at the new hurdle but typed up one page and faxed it the day before the deadline. He has heard nothing since, with his application apparently caught in what has become an uncertain process.

This year, more than 200 nonviolent felons received a notice from the secretary of the commonwealth requiring that they write such a letter to the governor by April 1. In mid-April, McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin told The Washington Post that the notices had been sent in error, but applicants said last week they had not been told that they were a mistake. Martin said 95 percent of those who received the request wrote letters by the deadline.

Janet Polarek, secretary of the commonwealth, and the governor's office declined to say why the applicants have not been told the letters were sent by mistake or whether the letters received will be considered, nor would they answer any other questions about the rights restoration process.

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has come under fire for trying to revamp the process that reinstates voting rights for people convicted of a nonviolent felony. 

A proposal by the McDonnell administration calls for both violent and nonviolent felons to provide a written explanation of their arrest and their contributions to society since their release from jail to be considered for voting rights restoration. 

People automatically lose their right to vote in an election — as well as their right to own a gun, hold office or serve on a jury — when they are convicted of a felony in Virginia. 

In most states, people convicted of a felony have their voting rights automatically restored some time after they have finished their sentences. Only Virginia and Kentucky require the governor to sign off on individual cases of restoring voting rights to all felons. 

Under former governors Mark Warner (D) and Tim Kaine (D), people convicted of a nonviolent felony who wanted their voting rights restored had to wait three years after finishing supervised probation and fill out a one-page application. They were not required to provide a written statement. 

The Democratic Party of Virginia and the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized McDonnell for adding a written component to the voting rights restoration application process for nonviolent offenders. They said a required essay would discourage low-income residents and people who are not literate from applying. 

Currently, over 300,000 Virginians cannot vote as a result of being convicted of a felony, according to the Virginia Voter Restoration Project. 

The restriction on felons disproportionately affects African Americans. Approximately 20 percent of African American residents in Virginia who are 18 and older are ineligible to vote due to felony convictions, according to a study published in the Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest at the University of Richmond.

The following is a partial list of nonviolent felonies in Virginia:
*offering a bribe to a state employee or taking a bribe as a state employee
*engaging in dog fighting activities 
*manufacturing alcoholic beverages without the appropriate license
*storing 500 or more "waste tires" on personal property without a permit 
*throwing or dropping an object from more than one story above the ground with the intent to injure someone 
*entering a house without the owner’s permission and with the intent to steal something
*using a computer to swindle a person out of $200 or more 
*willfully causing $200 or more worth of damage to a public utility, such as a facility that provides electricity or a sewer plant. 
*assisting other people, for a fee, with stealing cable television 
*knowingly writing a bad check worth $200 or more 
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=339798&paper=72&cat=104

There are no easy solutions to our complex challenges, and certainly off-shore drilling doesn't come as close as the spilled oil flowing to our shore.  However, facing the reality that we have been governed more often than not, by a bought and paid for State and Federal government, we discover renewed Hope for Change, and it comes from Your Street, not Wall Street.  It's in "We the People."  Yes New York caught a break from wherever lucky breaks come from.  Nonetheless, it was so uplifting and inspiring to see yet again, the best of what New Yorkers (& all of us) can be, and how quick and decisive New York’s Finest can take action.  Until 2000, I had lived in NYC for decades, witnessed how Big Apple Firemen, Police, Teachers, Hospital pros, passersby on the street and Hot Dog Vendors step up to the plate and swing away.

On Sept 11, 2001, I was teaching Middle School in Northern Virginia near CIA, and while others were turning off school TV sets, as if that would make it go away, my students and I watched and discussed. Yes, they were afraid and confused by the replaying of the towers falling, but they were also filled with questions, and as a New Yorker, I hoped to think fast and provide answers.  You see, almost all my students had parents working that day at both CIA and the Pentagon. I tried to be for them what, on this second day of infamy, the firemen and policemen we were watching on TV were trying to be for those in the towers. So when did it all change to the United States of Arizona?

As shockingly blatant as it was to hear a sitting Vice President respond to public war objections with an arrogant, “So,” The Dick’s Rovian Bush League was not the first stop on route through Katrina and coal mine disasters to McCain country. First there were the bookends of The Sedition Act of John Adams and the pressured FDR establishing concentration camps in “The Land of the Free,” for Asian Americans, some of whom had family members fighting in WWII – Yes, on our side.  No it started before that.  Post war disciples of Booth started up the bus for our journey through Jim Crow with a sequel of the "War of Aggression" in marathon right into the 60’s of JFK, MLK and BOBBY. Then our Non-Freedom Bus to desert South West, took off in a puff of white smoke, picking up June 1964 trio in Mississippi, after transferring through the empire building of McKinley, Teddy and Taft.

This month, we have a rare opportunity to fundamentally change the course of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan.

This month, we have a rare opportunity to fundamentally change the course of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan: Senator Russ Feingold, Representative Jim McGovern, and Representative Walter Jones have introduced legislation -- H.R. 5015 in the House and S. 3197 in the Senate -- that would require President Obama to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. If this legislation attracts enough support, it could reach the House floor as an amendment, allowing Congress a fundamental -- and widely reported -- vote on the direction of U.S. policy.

The key idea of the Feingold-McGovern-Jones bill is straightforward. By January 1 - or within 3 months of the enactment of the bill, if that is earlier - the President is required to submit to Congress a plan for the redeployment of the U.S. military from Afghanistan, with a timetable for doing so. After submitting the plan, the President has to update Congress every 90 days on how the implementation of the plan is going.

Would you help build support for this important legislation by asking your Representative and Senators to co-sponsor the Feingold-McGovern-Jones bill?

Senator Russ Feingold, Representative Jim McGovern, and Representative Walter Jones have introduced legislation that would require President Obama to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. Urge your representatives to cosponsor this bill >