“Shall the City of Santa Ana City Charter be amended to allow … noncitizen City residents, including those who are taxpayers and parents, to vote in all City of Santa Ana municipal elections?”
In November, this question about voting will be presented to voters.
It is true that noncitizens in the city include both “taxpayers and parents,” of course. Still, by this same logic, why not change the ballot language to read “including the childless and the destitute”? Those noncitizens would also get to vote.
Or get away from one’s tax status and childbirth proclivities altogether and change the wording to “including those who speak French and drink coffee.” Or maybe voters could be made aware that noncitizens will include “shopaholics and known thespians.”
All these statements are the truth and nothing but the truth. How could anyone object?
But object they did. Opponents of the measure filed suit, asking a California court to strike the “taxpayers and parents” wording from the ballot — as prejudicial in favor of the change.
The court agreed, ordering the city to remove that language “sugarcoating” the proposition.
But the city refuses (I didn’t know cities could tell courts No!*) and is keeping its current biased language to push a Yes vote on the proposition.
Rule of law be damned.
My last suggestion to Santa Ana officials is to edit the wording after noncitizens to say, “including jugglers and clowns.” No, wait — that particular identification might be confusing, since it applies far less to noncitizens than to Santa Ana’s city council.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Unusual, indeed, for a local government to ignore a court order. It likely means the proposition, even if passed, will ultimately be blocked in court as improperly enacted.
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4 replies on “Jugglers & Clowns”
Just this year, we’ve seen Joe Biden defy the Supreme Court in his effort to write off student loans. So much for ‘rule of law’.
Clowns and jokers.
Clowns to the left.
Here we are “Stuck in the middle”.
If, indeed, the objective were to extend the locat franchise totaxpayers and parents who were not US citizens, then the language could have stated exactly that:
“Shall the City of Santa Ana City Charter be amended to allow … taxpayers and parents who are noncitizen City residents to vote in all City of Santa Ana municipal elections?”
We may thus infer that the concern is to extend the franchise to noncitizen residents who are not taxpayers or parents.
The State of California being what it is, we may expect that different courts will rule differently on whether the law were improperly enacted, simply based upon whether the judges ruling do or don’t want the franchise extended.