I have had a great number of requests from listmembers
for more information on expanding local voting rights
to our immigrant populations here in Mpls. In a web
search, I picked up 27,600 related documents.
Unfortunately, many were dated or concerned voting
rights in local elections in other countries.
I hope folks find this info of interest.
David Strand
Ward 7
Loring Neighborhood
Here's a few I found interesting!
Last Update: 02/06/97
Web Author: Xiaoquan Charles Li
Copyright �1997 by APA Immigration Project - ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED
The Boston Phoenix
February 18 - 25, 1999
Alien ballot
A novel idea in Cambridge: Give noncitizen immigrants
the vote
Cityscape by Sarah McNaught
Manuel Garcia feels cheated. As a young man, in 1984,
he left his family in Chile and moved to Cambridge to
start a new life with his bride, Rosa. But in the past
15 years, he's accumulated some complaints. He says
he's been forced out of his home by the loss of rent
control. He's had to sit by and let others make
decisions about his daughter's education in the
Cambridge public schools. And he's heard many of his
fellow immigrants complain that they get paid less
than their American coworkers even though they do
their jobs just as well, if not better.
Garcia feels that he has no recourse because, as a
noncitizen, he cannot vote. It frustrates him. "I have
never broken the law. I pay my taxes. I give money to
almost every local organization that calls me for
donations. And still, I am without any say," he says,
smoothing his hands over his shoulder-length black
hair. "I work hard and I give what I can to this city,
but what do I get in return? There are too many
barriers here."
But that could change with the passage of an unusual
initiative now gaining momentum in Cambridge.
On January 25, the Cambridge City Council heard
proposals from a city-government task force formed
last October to address the growing race and class
tensions within city government and the city at large.
Most of the recommendations were conventional --
racial-sensitivity training for city employees, more
minorities in upper management, and additional
affordable housing. But the task force also suggested
that city government empower immigrants by giving them
the right to vote in city-council and school-committee
elections. If the proposal is approved, Cambridge
would become one of only a handful of cities
nationwide to grant voting rights to noncitizens.
This is not the first time the issue of noncitizen
voting rights has been raised in Cambridge. In June
1993, a grassroots organization known as the Cambridge
Eviction-Free Zone launched a "Campaign for Voting
Rights" to allow Cambridge's legal immigrants to vote
in all city elections, even if they were not citizens.
According to the 1990 US Census, Cambridge has 21,350
foreign-born residents, 14,754 of whom are
noncitizens. A 1998 Current Population Survey shows
that since the census, another 135,000 people have
immigrated to Massachusetts from other countries.
Laura Booth, who spearheaded the 1993 effort, says her
group adopted the idea from a similar 1992 campaign in
Takoma Park, Maryland. "We learned that a professor at
a university in Takoma Park campaigned for a
referendum to allow noncitizens to vote and
succeeded," says Booth, who now works for the
Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee and is no
longer affiliated with the Cambridge Eviction-Free
Zone. But after about a year, Booth says, the
organization dropped the voting-rights issue to focus
on housing, which had become an urgent matter with the
demise of rent control.
It was Cambridge Eviction-Free Zone member Natalie
Smith who took up the cause again, suggesting it to
the task force as a way to get more members of the
community involved in the class and race issues that
are increasingly dividing the city. "People who use
public schools, pay taxes, and participate in
community activities should have a say not only in
their children's education, but also in how their
taxes are spent," says Denise Simmons, the head of the
task force and a school-committee member. "We
understand that some people feel the right to vote
should be a privilege only for citizens, but you have
to look at it from a participatory point of view."
Expanded voting rights, she argues, will give more
people a voice in city decisions "and, in turn, show
city-government officials that all members of the
Cambridge community have a vested interest in the
future of the city and its schools."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other cities across the country have attempted similar
initiatives. Chicago and New York City have always
allowed noncitizens to vote in local school-board
elections. And activists in Los Angeles and several
cities in Texas and Colorado are working to win
noncitizen voting rights in local elections.
Internationally, countries such as Denmark, Sweden,
Chile, Norway, and the Netherlands have allowed
noncitizen immigrants local voting rights for several
years, according to Booth.
And there is historical precedent. Prior to World War
I, immigrants were allowed to vote in local, state,
and national elections in 22 states. Jamin Raskin, the
American University law professor who led the
referendum effort in Takoma Park, says that at one
time it wasn't unusual for immigrants to serve as
school-board members, coroners, or aldermen. "Alien
suffrage was a huge issue during the Civil War, with
the North in favor of it and the South abhorring it,"
Raskin says. "It wasn't until the end of the First
World War -- when immigrants became darker, more
Mediterranean -- that the outbreak of anti-alien
passions finished off the practice of voting rights
for noncitizens."
Reintroducing those rights is an effort that must be
fought on both legal and political fronts.
Massachusetts law says that voters must be citizens,
but the law is easily amended. After the initiative is
discussed further at the next city-council meeting, a
public hearing will be held and the community will
vote. If approved, the measure will be passed on to
the state legislature as a home-rule exemption to the
state law.
"It's something I would think would be accepted in
Cambridge, as they have many organizations that work
closely on the issue of immigrant rights," says Kerry
Doyle of the International Institute of Boston, a
group that assists immigrants with asylum and
citizenship applications, job placement, and other
needs.
Getting state approval may not be easy, however, says
Laura Booth. "Basically, that involves begging [House
Speaker Thomas] Finneran to approve it, which we
haven't had much luck with in the past," she says,
referring to home-rule petitions that Cambridge has
introduced on other issues.
Cambridge is not the only Massachusetts city weighing
this type of proposal. On October 26, Amherst passed
an initiative to grant local voting rights to
foreigners in board-of-selectmen, school-committee,
and even town-meeting elections. Now the measure needs
approval from the state legislature, which rejected a
similar home-rule petition that Amherst filed in 1996.
In Cambridge, too, the measure's political prospects
are uncertain. Members of the Cambridge City Council
did not comment on the proposal at their January 25
session but instead opted to table the discussion
until their next meeting. But the idea has increasing
support from the immigrant community. Oscar Chacon, a
Salvadoran immigrant who has been a US citizen for
eight years, says it is time for the government to
acknowledge that noncitizen immigrants are suffering
taxation without representation.
"To the extent that we pay taxes equally, we should
also have the right to choose the public officials who
administer our taxes," says Chacon, the executive
director of the Cambridge-based Centro Presente, an
organization geared toward immigrant civic activism.
And he is confident that immigrants -- unlike many
native-born citizens -- would use their voting rights.
"I do believe there are more immigrants interested in
voting than Americans right now," Chacon says. "I can
assure you that the percentage of noncitizens voting
in city elections would be higher than citizen votes
when it comes to such things as ballot questions,
which oftentimes involve immigrant issues such as
wages and housing."
Noncitizen immigrants in Cambridge remain hopeful. "My
children attend the public schools, so I should have a
say in choosing those people who oversee how the
Cambridge school system is run," says Salvador
Hernandez, 40, a Centro Presente employee from El
Salvador who has applied for asylum. "Similarly, I
have the responsibility to pay taxes, so why can't I
have the privilege of contributing to how those taxes
are spent?"
Hernandez admits that language is a barrier for him
and other immigrants who have not mastered English.
But, he says, there is no reason why voting
instructions and ballot questions can't be made
multilingual. "Some say immigrants keep to themselves
and probably wouldn't vote anyway, but voting and the
barriers that keep us from voting are very large
issues among the immigrant community," says Hernandez.
"We do care, and we do have opinions just like anyone
else. That's why we moved here."
Sarah McNaught can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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More From Mass.:
Immigrants Rally for Voting Rights
THURSDAYS: Don't miss U.S. Visa News Chat! Click here!
11/05/98 -- Click on Home if you linked directly to
this page from a search engine.
On Tuesday, the Boston Globe reported that 30
immigrants rallied in West Roxbury protesting the
enormous citizenship backlog at the Immigration and
Naturalization Server (INS). Protestors felt that this
backlog is hindering their right to vote by making
them wait years to become legal citizens.
In this era of voter apathy, new immigrants are
showing that they are eager and willing to participate
in the voting process. Studies say that the main
reason immigrants seek citizenship is for the right to
vote.
Apathetic native citizens of this country should learn
from this country's immigrant population that the
right to vote is not something to be taken lightly.
More from Mass.:
U.S. Visa News Headlines
Proposal to Allow Immigrant Non-Citizens to Vote
THURSDAYS: Don't miss U.S. Visa News Chat! Click here!
2/23/99 -- Click on Home if you linked directly to
this page from a search engine.
On January 25, 1999, the Cambridge City Council in
Cambridge, Massachusetts heard proposals from a
city-government task force. One of these proposals was
to give immigrants the right to vote in city-council
and school-committee elections. If this is approved,
Cambridge could become one of only several cities in
the nation to grant voting rights to non-citizens.
Kerry Doyle of the International Institute of Boston,
believes that the proposal would be accepted locally
in Cambridge. Massachusetts law says that all voters
must be citizens. This law would be easy to amend
legally, but may be difficult politically. However,
Laura Booth, who led a similar effort in 1993, says
that, "Getting state approval may not be
easy...involves begging [House Speaker Thomas]
Finneran to approve it, which we haven't had much luck
with in the past."
These immigrants pay taxes, and contribute to the
United States locally and nationally in many ways, but
feel that they do not have a say in local or national
government which makes decisions about their lives
(e.g. rent control, education of their children,
etc.). Some say that it is "taxation without
representation."
There is some historical precedent to this proposal.
Prior to World War I, immigrants in the United States
were allowed to vote in local, state, and national
elections in 22 states. After the war, the growing
"anti-alien" sentiment ended practices of allowing
noncitizens to vote.
Amherst, Massachusetts passed a similar proposal on
October 26, 1998, to grant voting rights to immigrants
in board-of-selectmen, school-committee, and
town-meeting elections, and is now waiting for
approval from the state legislature.
Chicago and New York City have always allowed
noncitizens to vote in local school-board elections.
Activists in Los Angeles and several Texas and
Colorado cities are also working to establish voting
rights in local elections for noncitizens. On an
international scope, several countries, such as
Denmark, Sweden, Chile, Norway, and the Netherlands
allow noncitizen immigrants to vote in local
elections, and have allowed this for several years.
- Jennifer
Bill in Texas at:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/tlo/textframe.cmd?LEG=74&SESS=R&CHAMBER=H&BILLTYPE=B&BILLSUFFIX=02816&VERSION=1&TYPE=B
A great article comparing German and US migrant rights
including voting rights for resident nonnationals:
http://www2.smu.edu/tower/Koslowski2.html
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