Congressional Republicans Take Aim At D.C. Bill Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote In Local Elections
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Anonymous
Citizens. Certainly not some wealthy Russian who may have arrived yesterday and bought a condo here. Or someone who smuggled into the country. |
Anonymous
Says the person who thinks that there is something important about a past where women and Black people who were citizens were not allowed to vote but some white male immigrants who were in the process of becoming citizens were. These are not serious arguments for someone who is screaming about white supremacy so clearly you’re a troll. |
Anonymous
Were you or were you not the poster that referenced the Constitution? If you happen to not think there's anything important about the Constitution because it was written at a time when "women and Black people who were citizens were not allowed to vote", then you have an interesting viewpoint. Regardless, trying to twist someone's words into something that they aren't doesn't make your position any the more defensible. |
Anonymous
But "the governed" were not actually "citizens". They were residents of an area and wanted to be governed by leaders who were accountable to them. That you need to invent ridiculous - and irrelevant - strawmen to make your point reveals that you lack sincerity and/or a basic understanding of what has been proposed. |
Anonymous
Everyone else that votes there is currently a citizen without proper representation. So yes, citizenship should mean something, but it doesn't in very specific places in the U.S. |
Anonymous
That "the governed" became Citizens of a new and independent country is how this country was created. Not by God or by citizens of wherever, but by "We the People" |
Anonymous
Of course, many aspects of American life have changed since the drafting of the Constitution. You could take your arguments and apply them equally as well to the 2nd Amendment or even the 1st Amendment. As you probably know, such arguments fail to gain political traction due, among other things, to the reverence placed by politicians and the general public in the designs of the founders, as expressed in the Constitution. And the founders seem to have no particular problem with non-citizens voting in elections, given that it was permitted in 12 of the 13 original states. That said, there is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees non-citizens the right to vote in elections, local or otherwise, just as there is nothing that precludes that. So, yes, Congress could theoretically overturn DC's new law. That is, of course, very unlikely to happen given that a majority of members of the Senate - let alone a super-majority - thankfully do not believe that it is a good use of their precious collective time to engage in internal colonialism over the District's local affairs. That DC's new law is aligned with the intents of the founders is a minor point, however. The main argument for the new law is that it's just good practice to have local officials elected by and accountable to the people who are most directly affected by decisions affecting the district they represent, which of course are the residents of that district. |
Anonymous
Without the basic principle that it's important for officials to be accountable to the residents they preside over (who, in the case of prerevolutionary America, did not think of themselves as citizens of the same country as their rulers), that new and independent country would never have been founded. |
Anonymous
You are not up to date with reality of how illegal aliens operate. Utilities get around this all the time. For that matter, many banks will accept Mexico's consular ID. |
Anonymous
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Many citizens are undocumented. People seem to be using undocumented in place of illegal aliens.
The title doesn't say illegal aliens, it says non-citizens, who could be here legally. |
Anonymous
The proposal includes those who are here legally and illegally. I think everyone understands that. The focus on the undocumented is that it is the most extreme case because it is so hard to even verify identify and residency. In any case, the proposal also does not make sense for a non-citizen here legally. It makes zero sense that someone who cannot legally contribute to a political campaign would be allowed to legally vote in an election. |
Anonymous
The proposal only allows voting for DC local elections. “Undocumented” is generally used as a euphemism for “illegal aliens”. Both terms are lazy and generally encompass a whole bunch of those who migrate in a documented and legal manner. |
Anonymous
The path to citizenship is relatively quick. 3 years of residency. It used to be 7. |
Anonymous