Special interest groups back NYC bill to give voting rights to non-US citizens

Vote sticker, by Ann Larie Valentine

As if you haven't seen enough garbage coming in this election season already (found via Gates of Vienna):

At a rally outside City Hall yesterday organized by the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, supporters of a City Council bill that would extend voting rights to 1.3 million noncitizen New Yorkers said it's unfair that immigrant residents pay more than $18 billion in state income taxes when they can't vote for their representatives.
...
A supporter of the bill, Council Member Robert Jackson of Harlem, said in his district alone there are about 40,000 people who are paying taxes and don't have the right to vote. He said the coalition needed to publicize the position of every council member on the proposal and the reasons for their stances.

Let's publicize the positions of people who back this lunatic bill, and see if we can strip them of their voting rights for even suggesting such idiocy...

If people are upset about paying taxes, living in the community, and not being able to vote, there are two better options available:

1) Become a US citizen!
2) Go back to your own country and vote there (assuming that country has voting rights at all).

After all, I wouldn't imagine moving to a foreign country and demanding the right to vote for their leaders. I lived in Germany for many years without voting in their system, and I don't feel the least bit slighted. I was a guest in their country, and I voted in US elections by absentee ballot.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that: a) the bill covers local elections only, and b) theoretically would only apply to legal residents, not illegal immigrants. But two problems there already: a) That's one hell of a slippery slope, and b) how do you know who is a legal resident or not? Remember, these are the same kinds of people who also uniformly oppose requiring ID cards when voting.

So how do they justify this, anyway? As usual, right on cue, when you have no real arguments on your side, the old "racism" accusation:

He suggested that those opposed to giving noncitizens the right to vote might be motivated by racism, and noted that in the early years of American history noncitizens were allowed to vote.

That second argument is interesting; before WWI, being a citizen was not a uniformly a requirement for voting. But before that time, the world was very different, and the country generally had open immigration anyway. Besides, the "early years" do not always the best examples to emulate. Women and blacks also weren't allowed to vote back then. Does he want to go back to that??



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