Idea.
Ever."
Posted on 09/18/2008 8:04:34 PM PDT by Delacon
An emerging movement to give non-citizens the right to vote in local elections should be resisted because it puts at risk national cohesion and the value of U.S. citizenship, according to a new report by a group that supports lower immigration.
“The Constitution, the Congress and the courts have enshrined voting as a core indispensable element of American citizenship and democracy,” Stanley A. Renshon, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said upon release of his paper, “Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in the United States? Why Not.”
Those who support non-citizen voting argue that it would actually be more democratic because more interests would be represented and participation in the political process would aid newcomers’ assimilation.
The report attempts to debunk that claim. And conservative columnist Michael Barone took issue with that characterization at a Sept. 15 CIS event promoting the study.
“This proposal is a tactic by insincere manipulators who want to increase the number of votes cast on their side of the issues and in the absence of interested citizens are willing to try to find any votes they can,” Barone said.
Immigrant advocates say CIS is blowing a nascent academic debate out of proportion in an effort to stir up anti-immigration sentiment.
”The question remains why CIS keeps screaming ‘fire’ when there isn’t any smoke, let alone flames,” Angela Kelly, director of the Immigrant Policy Center, said in a statement. “CIS work does not inform and support the real thinking that needs to go into immigration reform, it avoids it.
A leading proponent for immigrant voting rights says he can only wish the “relatively small campaigns in different parts of the country . . . primarily academics and groups with very little resources” were more like the concerted effort the CIS report depicts.
“I’d love to see it be more concerted. I’d love to see more institutionalized support,” said Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at City University of New York. “Hopefully, this publication will help advance the cause by providing more publicity.”
Seven municipalities allow non-citizens to vote in local or school board elections, and several others are considering the issue, according to Hayduk’s group the Immigrant Voting Project.
Non-citizen participation is often quite low, a fact cited by Renshon and admitted by Hayduk.
That’s a result of several factors, he said, notably that many non-citizens resemble other voters who consistently have lower turnout. — those with lower levels of education and income.
Additionally, “there is a reticence to come forward and put their name on a registration list,” he said, which has grown “with the greater scrutiny of immigrants and immigrants’ greater state of terror.”
Some opponents of non-citizen voting say it would also likely result in negative unintended consequences for immigrants.
Renshon argues that if non-citizen immigrant votes resulted in an election outcome not favored by the majority of citizens, “people would be angry . . . and support for legal immigration would take a nose-dive. It would bring out the most nativist and the most hostile elements in our thinking.”
Hayduk acknowledged that as “one possible outcome, but it could be quite the contrary and there are several ways that scenario could be avoided.”
Supporters could “appeal to the idea of the American dream and its latest manifestation and [say] rather than weakening communities, immigrants bring assets and strength to achieve some of those components of the American dream.”
They’ll have a hard time convincing John Fund, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal who also participated in the event where the study was released.
He ended his statement on the CIS report saying, “in general, this is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard in public policy. It defies common sense.”
Caitlin Webber can be reached at cwebber@cq.com.
They’ll have a hard time convincing John Fund, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal who also participated in the event where the study was released.
He ended his statement on the CIS report saying, “in general, this is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard in public policy. It defies common sense.”
Whom God would destroy, He first makes mad.
This country has lost its freaking mind!!
Alexis de Tocqueville is now the smartest person who ever lived. IMHO.
Non-citizens being allowed to vote in our elections? That’s insane. What’s next-homosexuals getting married?
I’m a naturalized American citizen...
BIG FAT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Fund sums it up. It does completely defy common sense. I can’t even believe it’s being discussed.
“Non-citizens being allowed to vote in our elections? That’s insane. What’s next-homosexuals getting married?”
It is pure insanity to even consider allowing non-citizens to vote in our elections!
I hope the voters in California amend their constitution to ban gay marriage and, by some miracle, we can get it reversed in Massachusetts.
Jorge Arbusto and Juan McAmnesty should think this is just great. Voting doesn’t stop at the Rio Grande.
Can US citizens then vote for a non-corrupt Mexican government? Or against socialized medicine for Canada? There, at least, we win based on numbers.
Oh, oh, can Western feminists vote for womens’ rights in Saudi Arabia? Oh, wait, never mind. They’ll don the burqas first.
Hey Renshon, no real citizen of the US would ever support your stupid idea. So stuff it.
Voting is for citizens of America and ONLY citizens.
The rest of them can SHUT UP!
I think voting is about the only right / benefit still reserved for citizens, albeit living or dead, human or not.
Two great ways of destroying American civilization.
Idea.
Ever."
they can vote all they want on the msnbc and cnn polls.
Non-citizens voting in US elections is illegal, unconstitutional, and because of ACORN and LULAC, it happens all the time.
Well, hell, the Canadian and the Brits think they have a say in the current campaign, The One campaigned in Germany, so why not open our elections up to the world?
We can vote. After that, just shut up and go away.........
I am sick and tired of that politico supremacy of the people we are responsible for elevating into the public trust.
If non-citizens are given the right to vote, I’m leaving. And the country can count on the “non-citizens” to pay taxes - if those people ever do.
It is what the Palestinians wish for.
And the french are 80% for Obama. I imagine they relate to his desire to surrender in Iraq.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America”
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