A Los Angeles City Council member backed by the Democratic Socialists of America is proposing to allow illegal aliens to vote in city elections, including those for mayor, City Council, and Board of Education seats.
Hugo Soto-Martínez, whose parents were in the U.S. illegally before becoming naturalized citizens, released a proposal Wednesday that would ask voters in the Nov. 3 election to give the council authority to allow noncitizens to vote in city elections, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"After my parents immigrated here from Mexico, they worked hard, paid taxes, and raised their kids in our public schools, but for decades they had no say in the decisions shaping their community until they became citizens," Soto-Martínez said.
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, but states can set their own rules for local and statewide elections.
The proposal was also signed by City Council member Ysabel Jurado, who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. It now heads to the council's rules committee for consideration, but it faces a number of hurdles that could derail it.
The council must vote to place the measure on the ballot, and voters would then have to approve it, according to the Times. The council would still need to pass an ordinance revising city election law.
Soto-Martínez, who is running for a second term in the June 2 primary, isn't the only candidate to favor the idea. The top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
California Deputy Attorney General Marissa Roy, who is seeking to unseat Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, told the Democratic Socialists of America last year that she supports the effort to give noncitizens the vote in Los Angeles local elections.
"While the City Council or County Board of Supervisors would need to pass this legislation, as city attorney, I would make sure that immigrants voting in local elections are protected from the federal government," she wrote on a candidate questionnaire, a copy of which was reviewed by the Times.
Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told the Times his organization would fight such a proposal, arguing that it "undermines the whole concept of citizenship, and what it means to be a member of American society."
Mehlman, whose group favors stronger enforcement of federal immigration laws, said Los Angeles should not allow people to "just show up from the outside and have an equal voice in how the city is run."
"That is a privilege and a right that is reserved for citizens," he said.
Dylan Kendall, who is running against Soto-Martínez, also criticized the proposal, but for a different reason. She told the Times it has the potential to create "a new government list of noncitizen voters" at a time of heightened federal immigration enforcement efforts.
"What he's proposing now sounds less like protecting our community and more like asking people to sign onto a public list that exposes undocumented neighbors to greater danger," she said.
A handful of California jurisdictions have experimented with expanding voting rights to noncitizens in limited contexts, the Times reported. If approved, Los Angeles would become the nation's largest city to adopt such a policy.
The debate comes as a competing California statewide voter ID initiative could move the state in the opposite direction.
The GOP-backed measure, which has qualified for the November ballot, would require voters to show government-issued identification at the polls. Mail-in voters would need to provide the last four digits of an ID, such as a driver's license, and election officials would be required to verify voter registration each time a ballot is cast.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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