Is Los Angeles Seeing Sense on Noncitizen Voting?

The Los Angeles City Council has reversed course on a ballot measure that would have asked voters in the nation’s second-largest city to decide whether noncitizens may vote in city and school board elections. However, this news isn’t as simple as it might seem.

The motion’s author, Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, said that he authored the motion for noncitizen voting because groups that represent illegal aliens asked him to do so, but then he had second thoughts when his own black constituents pushed back.

Soto-Martinez said he hasn’t had a change of heart, but that “more work needed to be done before the issue is presented to voters.” Translation: He thinks he just has a PR problem.

Councilwoman Traci Park initially voted for the measure but changed her mind. “My concern here is that if this goes to the ballot, the voters won’t really know what they are voting for,” she said, “because we don’t really know either.”

The original motion passed 10-5—only to be reversed by a 14-0 vote. Was the unanimous change of heart the product of the realization that they hadn’t done their due diligence, or was it because they had been caught in the act by a suddenly attentive nation? Only the council members know for sure.

It is clear that the plan to let noncitizens vote legally in Los Angeles is not going away. This bad idea will be back, and with better marketing. The funny thing about bad ideas is that they tend to spread. How long will it be before the California Legislature decides to legalize noncitizen voting for state elections? 

Such a controversial idea has already been attempted legislatively in Connecticut and New York. While the Los Angeles ballot measure was pulled because of the fear that voters would not approve it in November, the California Legislature could legalize noncitizen voting for state elections on its own tomorrow, if it wanted to, without having to ask the voters for approval. 

What most people fail to realize is that noncitizen voting in California wouldn’t stay in California. The U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2 and the 17th Amendment, ties voter eligibility for congressional elections to voter eligibility in state legislative elections, and Congress affects everybody. If noncitizens are eligible to vote for the state legislature, they are also eligible to vote for members of Congress, and there isn’t a state or federal statute that can alter that fact. It’s in the Constitution and has been since 1789, which is how noncitizens were able to legally vote in local, state, and federal elections for the first half of our nation’s history. 

Only an amendment to the U.S. Constitution can insulate the rest of the country from one state deciding to legalize noncitizen voting.

House Joint Resolution 152, sponsored by Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., is that constitutional amendment. This resolution would amend the United States Constitution to specify that only American citizens may vote in elections for federal office. The amendment would ensure a uniform franchise nationwide, and it would prevent any single state from undermining our representative democracy by allowing noncitizens to vote for members of Congress or the president.

 Supporters of noncitizen voting believe that the noncitizens in our communities should be able to participate in the democratic process.

I am an immigrant. When I wanted to participate in the democratic process, I became a citizen. We should require citizenship as the bare minimum for participating in elections—especially federal ones.

At a time when our nation is celebrating its 250th birthday, I can’t think of a better way to mark this milestone than to pass an amendment for citizen-only voting. The amendment would strengthen our representative democracy, highlight the value of citizenship, and protect federal elections from the actions of one state. Congress should pass HJR 152 without delay.

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