MA community wants to give legal immigrants vote in local el

[rewhblcain]

Voting rights on agenda
By Brock Parker
The Boston Globe, September 30, 2010
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... mmigrants/

Upset by the fear and anger she hears in the national conversation about immigration, Brookline resident Rebecca Stone is hoping a long-shot proposal will send a different message to many of her foreign-born neighbors.

Stone, Brookline’s School Committee chairwoman, is asking Town Meeting this fall to approve a proposal that would give legal immigrants with permanent-residency status in Brookline the right to vote in local elections.

A number of legal immigrants pay property taxes and send their children to public schools in Brookline, Stone said, and she believes allowing them to vote in local elections is a way to honor their commitment to the community.

'It may sound schmaltzy, but that’s why I did it,’’ said Stone, who is also an elected Town Meeting member. 'I just got tired of complaining about what everybody else was saying. I figured it’s a small thing to do. It’s a small gesture. But it’s a step in the right direction.’’

Her proposal would allow noncitizens with a so-called green card signifying permanent residency to vote in local elections for public offices, including selectmen, School Committee and Town Meeting members. The proposal does not include voting rights for state or national elections, and would not allow them to run for office.

But opponents say noncitizens shouldn’t be given the right to vote, and winning the support of Town Meeting in November isn’t the only hurdle Stone’s proposal would need to clear.

The measure would also require a home-rule petition being approved by the state Legislature and signed by the governor. Several other communities, including Amherst, Cambridge, and Newton, have approved similar voting proposals, only to see them stall at the State House.

State Representative Alice Wolf, Democrat of Cambridge, said her home city has submitted two such measures to the Legislature, but neither was approved. The proposals were sent to a study committee, which Wolf said is one way to bury a bill.

She said the idea that noncitizens should be allowed to vote in local elections does not have wide support in Massachusetts. The Legislature also seems to believe that voting standards should be the same across the state, she said.

Secretary of State William Galvin prefers to keep election laws as uniform as possible to prevent voter confusion, said Brian McNiff, the spokesman for Galvin’s office.

'He’s not in favor of special election rules for particular communities,’’ McNiff said.

Franklin Soults, spokesman for the Massachusetts Immigrant Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said his group supports the Brookline proposal.

Soults said there’s no question that there is an 'anti-immigration mood out there,’’ but Stone’s proposal offers the community a chance to say it won’t stand for fear and intimidation in the immigrant rights discussion.

Soults said the coalition hopes the state Legislature will come around on the issue.

'We think it’s kind of surprising, and maybe a bit presumptuous, that the Legislature won’t allow these home rule petitions to go through,’’ Soults said, especially since they affect 'nothing but these communities themselves.’’

He said Brookline has the 18th largest immigrant population in the state, with almost one out of every four residents born in another country. He said calls for local voting rights for legal immigrants typically come out of communities with high numbers of immigrants, and a strong presence of progressive Democrats.

But Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, described the notion of giving voting rights, even on a local level, to noncitizens as 'absurd.’’

'Certainly immigrants have human rights, but they certainly do not have rights associated with citizenship,’’ Kropper said. 'Voting is a right of citizenship, not of visitors.’’

Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at City University of New York who wrote a book on the issue, 'Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States,’’ said noncitizens may vote in six municipalities in Maryland, and in city school elections in Chicago.

This fall a proposal that would give legal immigrants the right to vote in local elections is on the ballot in Portland, Maine, and a proposal in San Francisco would give parents of public school children the right to vote in school elections regardless of their immigration status, he said.

Historically, Hayduk said, the practice of allowing immigrants to vote has been much more widespread in the United States.

'Forty states allowed noncitizens to vote between 1776 and 1926,’’ he said. 'It was widely practiced through most of our history in much of the country.’’

Massachusetts and New York were among the first states to roll back noncitizen voting rights, Hayduk said, largely spurred by two events: the War of 1812, and the French Revolution, which fueled fears of an exodus of radicals from France to the United States in the early 1800s.

Noncitizen voting rights were later rolled back in other states. But as globalization adds to migration around the world, Hayduk said, several countries are taking another look at immigrant rights.

'The idea is that perhaps political rights should travel with people as well,’’ he said.

In Newton, one in five residents was born in another country, according to Alderman Ted Hess-Mahan, who led the effort for legal immigrant voting rights in the city. The Board of Aldermen sent home-rule petitions on the issue to the Legislature in 2007 and again last year, but neither petition was approved, Hess-Mahan said, and he thinks the effort may have lost momentum.

If Brookline’s Town Meeting approves the proposal, Hess-Mahan said, he would consider asking his colleagues to pass the measure again.

'I’m waiting to see what happens in Brookline,’’ he said.

Stone said she’s hoping that if Brookline passes the local voting-rights measure, it will begin to create a critical mass that would convince legislators that they should allow it.

Stone said she’s also hoping the proposal will reenergize residents, reminding them about what it means to participate in American democracy, and encouraging them to welcome people into the voting process rather than keep them out.

'I believe that Brookline holds those values very dear, and I believe that this town will stand up and make this much more positive statement,’’ Stone said.

[rewhblcain]

Things sure gone crazy round here.

[Judy]

Where do these people get these stupid ideas?

[rewhblcain]

Where do these people get these stupid ideas?

Out of that wacky liberal playbook.

[roundabout]

I am making a mental note.....next time I go to Massachusetts I need to bring bottled water with me.

This woman's face needs to be put on the side of a milk carton. Surely there is an institution somewhere looking for her!

[alamb]

Since China holds X amount of debt we should allow China as a whole to vote in our elections. That would be the fair thing to do, right?

[Judy]

I am making a mental note.....next time I go to Massachusetts I need to bring bottled water with me.

This woman's face needs to be put on the side of a milk carton. Surely there is an institution somewhere looking for her!