My liberal friends have assured me many times that illegal immigrants would never be allowed to vote in any election.
My liberal enemies accused me of building a strawman argument.
My response to both? You can always tell when a liberal is lying because his/her lips are moving.
My liberal enemies accused me of building a strawman argument.
My response to both? You can always tell when a liberal is lying because his/her lips are moving.
New York's Move Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote Could Lead Other Cities to Follow
New York City lawmakers approved a historic measure on Thursday to grant hundreds of thousands of non-citizens the right to vote in local elections, setting the stage for a broader battle between supporters who want to expand immigrants’ voting rights and critics who think the move devalues citizenship.
The new measure, which will become law within 30 days if it’s not vetoed or earlier if the mayor signs it before then, is expected to apply to more than 800,000 non-citizens who will soon be able to cast a vote for mayor, public advocate, city council members and other municipal candidates. It covers legal permanent residents who have lived in the city for at least 30 consecutive days and are green card holders or are legally authorized to work in the U.S. They will not be permitted to vote in state and federal elections.
Immigration advocates in New York City and other parts of the country have been rallying behind the effort to give voting rights to non-citizens for years, saying they have long been an integral part of the community both as taxpayers and essential workers who deserve a say in local government.
New York City is set to be the largest U.S. jurisdiction to allow non-citizen residents to vote in local elections regardless of citizenship or immigration status, joining about a dozen smaller cities and towns in the U.S., including several towns in Maryland and Vermont. A handful of other major cities, including Washington D.C. and Portland, Maine, have recently considered similar changes.
New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and sponsored the bill, hopes the measure will encourage people running for public office to pay more attention to immigrant communities.
“Anyone who would like to be elected for a citywide office will have to spend the same amount of time visiting those communities—not only to celebrate their culture by dancing and eating their food—but discussing their platforms and agendas,” Rodriguez says. “They will have to dedicate the same time in those working-class communities that they dedicate in middle- and upper-class communities.”
Rodriguez and other supporters of the measure are optimistic that New York’s move will encourage other cities to follow.
“When New York City does something, it ripples across the nation,” says Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. “We want to make sure that what we’re doing here is really leading the way for others to also think about how they can enfranchise immigrants in their own cities.”
New York City lawmakers approved a historic measure on Thursday to grant hundreds of thousands of non-citizens the right to vote in local elections, setting the stage for a broader battle between supporters who want to expand immigrants’ voting rights and critics who think the move devalues citizenship.
The new measure, which will become law within 30 days if it’s not vetoed or earlier if the mayor signs it before then, is expected to apply to more than 800,000 non-citizens who will soon be able to cast a vote for mayor, public advocate, city council members and other municipal candidates. It covers legal permanent residents who have lived in the city for at least 30 consecutive days and are green card holders or are legally authorized to work in the U.S. They will not be permitted to vote in state and federal elections.
Immigration advocates in New York City and other parts of the country have been rallying behind the effort to give voting rights to non-citizens for years, saying they have long been an integral part of the community both as taxpayers and essential workers who deserve a say in local government.
New York City is set to be the largest U.S. jurisdiction to allow non-citizen residents to vote in local elections regardless of citizenship or immigration status, joining about a dozen smaller cities and towns in the U.S., including several towns in Maryland and Vermont. A handful of other major cities, including Washington D.C. and Portland, Maine, have recently considered similar changes.
New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and sponsored the bill, hopes the measure will encourage people running for public office to pay more attention to immigrant communities.
“Anyone who would like to be elected for a citywide office will have to spend the same amount of time visiting those communities—not only to celebrate their culture by dancing and eating their food—but discussing their platforms and agendas,” Rodriguez says. “They will have to dedicate the same time in those working-class communities that they dedicate in middle- and upper-class communities.”
Rodriguez and other supporters of the measure are optimistic that New York’s move will encourage other cities to follow.
“When New York City does something, it ripples across the nation,” says Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. “We want to make sure that what we’re doing here is really leading the way for others to also think about how they can enfranchise immigrants in their own cities.”
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