Reply to Congressional Republicans Take Aim At D.C. Bill Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote In Local Elections

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Congressional Republicans Take Aim At D.C. Bill Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote In Local Elections"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Republicans are right on this one. Citizenship should mean something.  You want to vote and participate in government, become a citizen. There is a well-established process for that.  The votes of citizens should never be outweighed by those of non-citizens.  This shouldn't even be controversial.[/quote]

This nonsense, right here is why Republicans still have the votes of moderates and some independents.This nonsense, right here is why Republicans still have the votes of moderates and some independence.

I realize this doesn’t matter in Washington DC but nationally it does. [/quote]

Agree 100%.  Allowing non-citizens to vote is simply stupid.  I have lived overseas on several occasions in democratic countries, and would never have even thought that I somehow was entitled in their elections. [/quote]

Sometimes you can vote in local matters IF you're legal.

What's insane is to try to get ILEGAL immigrants to vote.[/quote]

Some “illegal immigrants” have lived in DC for decades, paid taxes, but can’t naturalize because of administrative irregularities. Does it make sense to not allow them to vote in local elections affecting the neighborhood in which they live but to allow a college student who moved to DC 30 days ago to do so? Again, this law affects local and municipal elections only and no one who lacks the documentation to prove they live in DC is going to be allowed to vote. But of course, as with most things these days, some groups find it politically advantageous to cast the law as something that it isn’t.[/quote]

Show me ONE European country where illegal immigrants can vote, even in local elections.[/quote]

Many do. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizen_suffrage[/quote]
non-citizen is not the same as illegal (undocumented) migrant and does not address the PPs question, which I think is a fair question considering so many have posted to claim that this is not an uncommon practice. I am pretty sure that this practice of allowing illegal (undocumented) migrants to vote is exceedingly rare.[/quote]

Exactly. Legal immigrants can sometimes vote in local elections -- I have friends who do. Illegal immigrants can't, and don't -- it is beyond absurd, and no EU country (to my knowledge) allows it because, again, it is absurd.[/quote]

Is a parolee an illegal immigrant to you? How about someone who entered illegally but is protected from deportation by TPS? What about DACA recipients?[/quote]

No idea about parolees. The other two are clearly illegal immigrants and shouldn't vote until/ if they become legal residents with all rights and responsibilities. (Which is a federal, not local, function -- read the Constitution)[/quote]

Ha ha. Nice try. I have. The Constitution says nothing about limiting the right of suffrage to citizens. This was affirmed by the Supreme Court, which is why they decided in 1875 that "citizenship has not in all cases been made a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the right of suffrage." From the founding of the United States until 1926, some 40 states had at one point allowed non-citizens to vote in local, state and federal elections. Suffice to say, that would not have occurred had the Constitution precluded it. Currently, only seven state constitutions - those of Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio - make citizenship a requirement for voting. Anything else you want to discuss?[/quote]

So we're looking at pre-1940 voting restrictions as the ideal? I guess you're in favor of an undocumented worker voting in local elections so long as the are a white male?  [/quote]

I'm sorry that you have such demonstrable problems with reading comprehension.[/quote]

If you want to base current restrictions on historical precedent, then you might want to care a little about the history of citizenship. Unsurprisingly, when the country was largely empty with an agrarian economy, immigration was encouraged and the path to citizenship was relatively quick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Law_of_1802. None of that is true now. If you want to base your argument on the Supreme Court allowing non-citizen voting, then you should be perfectly ok with congress overriding the law, which is also constitutional. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics