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The Right of Citizens to Vote Shall Not Be Denied…on Account of Citizenship (or Lack Thereof)?
I just returned from a Portland (Maine) City Council Meeting where there was a proposal to send to referendum a measure to allow legal immigrants who are presently not citizens the right to vote in local elections only. Speaker after speaker, with few exceptions, ground through the following list of grievances dressed up as argument: white male privilege; the 200-plus-year-old document written by the slave-holding class of the aforementioned folks, aka The Constitution of the United States of America; Donald Trump’s tossing rolls of paper towels at Puerto Rican hurricane victims; diversity; inclusion; more diversity; more inclusion; democracy; more democracy; taxation without representation; immigrants’ rights to an unlimited list of privileges; my 12-year-old daughter thinks it’s a cool idea; people in Europe do it, so it must be a cool idea because everything they do is cool and inclusive and diverse. Do I need to continue?
So I patiently waited my turn (struggling intensely to maintain my composure). I get up to the mic and my three minutes starts. I begin by mentioning that two of my siblings have spouses who followed the prescribed process for becoming citizens to obtain their right to vote. I didn’t mention this in my comments, but in neither case, did I ever hear out of them (at least not in my presence) any sense of entitlement or resentment about the process. It’s bureaucratic and cumbersome and seemingly endless, but they did what they had to do to get the brass ring.
I then went on to explain the importance of following state law (even if it was written by white slave-holding males; no, I didn’t say that) in this matter since this law would conflict with the current state statute on voting, which requires citizenship for voting.
I then proceeded to the flaws in their “stakeholder” argument, in which they assert the need for the right to vote in local elections because they have children in the schools. I told those present:
Proponents of this measure also claim that non-citizens need the right to vote in order to satisfy their stakeholder claim in city services and institutions, such as the school board and the city council. Yet non-citizens already can exercise all sorts of First Amendment rights that allow them to redress grivances to elected officials, such as a school board or city council member, assemble peaceably against city policies, etc. Interestingly enough, the measure specifically excludes non-citizens from holding elective office in the city, all the while claiming civic participation as a reason for allowing them the right to vote in city elections, a seeming contradiction of their stated goal.
I then moved on to the artificial distinctions between legal vs. illegal immigrants and local vs. higher levels of government:
Another weakness in the proponents’ case is that all the reasons they cite for allowing non-citizen legal immigrants the right to vote also hold for illegal immigrants, who no doubt have the same stake in city governance as cited above. Moreover, the case for non-citizen participation would and should apply at the state and federal level, yet the advocates of non-citizen voting make no case for amending the state constitution to permit such an extension of this participation at those levels of government.
I closed with this:
Sadly the advocates of non-citizen voting have attempted to paint all opponents of this measure as bigots and nativists intent upon denying certain ethnic groups their full participation in the democratic process. Nothing could further from the truth: We welcome all (legal) newcomers from every corner of the earth to pursue U.S. citizenship and earn their right to vote through the naturalization process. It’s a tried and true process that ensures fealty to this great country and its first principles set forth in our Founding documents. We think it one worthy enough not to shortcut or sidestep for the sake of political expediency.
After I finished, as I was walking through the corridor, a young man stopped me to tell me how much he appreciated my testimony. He said that he was on the other side and disagreed, but he considered my arguments to be reasonable and not hate-filled or bigoted. He said that he wished his side would have refrained from that type of rhetoric, and it doesn’t help his cause. I thanked him and acknowledged that there were reasonable arguments to be made on the other side, particularly the stakeholder argument about living in the community and having kids in the schools. Unfortunately (for them), with this measure on the November ballot (and it will almost certainly pass this time around, given that it went down 52/48 in 2010), it will only incite the rest of more conservative voters in the state to come out to vote against state legislative candidates who would amend state law to allow for this.
Despite the feeling of hopelessness, at least there’s the consolation of that young man who still recognizes the importance of reasoned, thoughtful debate. It can’t be all that bad now, can it?
Update: Council puts off giving non-citizens right to vote in Portland municipal elections
Published in Immigration
Well said, well done :)
How were you received?
Surprisingly, no one cat-called or made any audible comments on my way out to the hallway. I considered that a victory. Most of the audience was filled with people who were clearly supportive of the measure. Only 2 others, besides myself, out of a group of about 30 who spoke, opposed the measure. The other thing was that instead of clapping their approval of a speaker (which was not allowed), they did this finger-snapping thing, sotto voce. Very strange.
You are braver than I would be in that situation, thanks for speaking up!
Are you in a particularly liberal town? I live in Western Mass, which overall is very liberal, but there are red and purple areas: is it the same way in Maine? Is Portland typical of all of Maine, or is Portland kind of weird? :)
I have the same questions as I did when Los Angeles(?) tried to include “non-citizens” (gotta love the euphemisms) in local school board elections. How does one distinguish non-citizen voters in local elections from non-citizen voters in statewide or national elections? Wouldn’t this require voter ID or some other mechanism for keeping non-citizens from voting in elections other than local elections? And, if you’re a lefty, how do you reconcile the discriminatory practice of making such distinctions? Or is this really a way to allow more (Democrat) illegals to vote in national elections?
Call me cynical, but I thinks it’s the latter.
Leftists don’t give a damn about American citizens. Never have, never will.
If you’re up against people skilled in the art of grievance, then logic and reason are less effective. But there’s an opportunity here.
I’ll suggest a different approach. Something along the lines of this (and I’ll suggest doing it slowly and emotionally for maximum effect):
Then you can really crank it up:
And… scene.
Well done, Pedro.
And… the young persons who shrieked at me during the infamous Think and Drink (because, as a law enforcement chaplain, I’m a racist) also snapped their fingers. Months later, I was at a family party and my young cousin snapped her fingers in approval of something, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Yes, Portland is off the charts liberal/progressive. It always seems to want to follow in the footsteps of the other Portland in terms of its wokeness. And, yes, the rest of the state thinks Portland does crazy stuff.
Thanks! I dreaded doing it, thinking of every excuse not to, but finally forced myself to go.
That’s a good question, and I honestly don’t know the answer. They’d have to keep a separate registry of voters so they wouldn’t allow them to vote in the state or Federal elections. At the time they register, presumably they’d be relying on the honesty of the voter and whatever identification they provided to establish residency in the city. I’m not really sure.
Not knowing is the feature (not the bug) they’re going for. Leftists really will use any means (Big Lies, little lies, deceptions, omissions) to advance toward their Utopia.
We need more people like you, Pedro, to confront them.
You are right to be cynical. Once legal non-citizens get the vote, they will surely support candidates who will weaken the requirements for non-citizens to prove they are legal.
Once this new voting “right” is in place, the argument will then become, “We let legal non-citizens vote, so why not let everyone vote?”
We’ve been silent for too long. You’ve sent a fine example of demonstrating that Republicans/Conservatives have principles and voices and we can speak objectively and passionately at the same time. Well done!
Nose under the tent. More incrementalism by the left. Us poor frogs get boiled again.
Thanks for the kind words, Susan. Living in Portland has made my skin thicker and my shoulders broader. :-)
Appreciate that, Western. I agree that that is really the endgame. I forgot to mention a poster that was hanging on one of the corridor walls (illegally, I presume) that said “No Borders.” That pretty much says it all.
Danger on the Left.
Any state–particularly the southern part–descended from Massachusetts has to be pretty woke. Two hundred years does not cure all ills.
Good job, BTW.
We cannot be expected to live like this in America. It is intolerable.
But it won’t be fixed or changed because the Left wants to flood and is flooding us with non-citizens.
(Oh and being a non-citizen isn’t a race, any more than being Muslim is, so don’t bother insinuating that)
Stories like this make me so angry! Kudos to you, though–
Ha! As if illegals didn’t already vote by the millions in Los Angeles and throughout California. Which is why California politicians campaign so hard in areas where the residents are almost exclusively illegals.
Has the left ever argued in court that the equal protection clause means that non-citizens should able to vote? At least legal non-citizens? That seems to be a no-brainer argument if you’re a leftist. “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”
Five SC justices thought it could change the definition of marriage so it would be a small step to allow green card holders to vote. Or even illegals.
You may be right. SCOTUS can kind of do whatever it wants if there is a majority to do it, short of a Constitutional Amendment. On the other hand, Amendments 19, 24 & 26 all describe the right to vote as being a right of citizens. To me, that strongly suggests that the equal protection clause does not grant aliens the right to vote.
BobTillman: “It displaces the vote of a citizen who is poor, it displaces the vote of a citizen who is a minority, or gay, or muslim, or trans, or elderly…”
Yep.
Allowing non citizens to vote is disenfranchising the vote of citizens. Often it is simply nullifying your vote. This vote nullification should be a crime. Any Attorney General worth his salt ( or her salt) should be all over this. (Hello Jeff Seesions, time to wake up from your long criminal snooze.)
Also, I am not a immigration hardliner, but if there were any proposal that would allow illegals to stay, there needs to be a provision in that proposal that any illegal who has voted in any election should be immediately deported. No ifs, ands or buts. I don’t care who said they could do it. Violating the law to come to this country for a better life is one thing. Taking advantage and nullifying the vote of citizens is quite another.
Organized voter fraud is an attempt to overthrow the government…because disenfranchising voters is literally doing that… and should therefore be a capital offense.
Don’t they do that because clapping is triggering?
I mentioned this to a friend I was having coffee with this morning, and he said they did that finger snapping thing at Occupy Wall Street. Figures.
It’s a jazz clap. A “cool” clap. Hell, we did this in our fraternity meetings in 1988.
I thought finger-snapping was a beatnik thing . . .