L.A. council member pushes plan to let noncitizens vote in city elections
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Los Angeles voters could be asked this year to take the first step toward giving noncitizens the right to vote in city and school board elections.City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who represents an Echo Park-to-Hollywood district, released a proposal Wednesday to ask voters in the Nov.3 election to give the council the power to let noncitizens vote in city elections, including those for mayor and City Council, as well as for Los Angeles Board of Education seats.The proposal faces multiple hurdles that could derail it.
The council must vote to put the measure on the ballot and after that, voters would have to approve it.After that, the council would still need to pass an ordinance revising city election law.Soto-Martínez, whose parents were at one time undocumented, said his proposal would help L.A.’s immigrant communities at a time when they are under assault from the Trump administration, which has launched immigration raids around the country and sought to revoke birthright citizenship.“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.The proposal, which was also signed by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, now heads to the council’s rules committee for consideration.Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said 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 L.A.
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 s...