“When you think about how dangerous it is to raise an issue like this,” Davis Hammet, president of Loud Light Civic Action, explained to a Kansas State House committee, “whenever something doesn’t need to be addressed — because you’re going to create a lot of public attention, a lot of debate on this, and very likely — not to say that anyone here, this is their intention — but there’s [sic] almost three million people in the state, some folks will have very xenophobic and potentially violent outlooks on immigration.”
Hammet then asked legislators to “consider the Garden City bombing plot,” a 2016 case in which three Kansas men were arrested and convicted of conspiring to bomb a housing complex with many Somali immigrants.
Wait . . . what issue — “like this” — is he talking about?
Mr. Hammet testified against House Concurrent Resolution 5004, a constitutional amendment introduced by Rep. Pat Procter, clarifying that only U.S. citizens are eligible voters in all Kansas elections, state and local.
“This legally and practically won’t do anything,” asserted Hammet.
Far from the truth, legally.
Kansas has the same language in its constitution’s suffrage provision as California and Vermont, where courts have upheld the constitutionality of noncitizen voting at the local level. Plus, by placing citizen-only voting in the state constitution, Kansans can guarantee their power to vote yes or no before any future state legislature or city council could legalize non-citizen voting.
Twenty-one cities across the U.S. now give the vote to noncitizens, most also allow those here illegally to vote. Meanwhile,in recent years nearly 30 million Americans in 14 states have voted by whopping margins to enact Citizen Only Voting Amendments like HCR 5004, eight of those states last November.
“But it could create fuel on the fire for some radical groups,” speculates Hammet, “to feel like they’re motivated to take improper actions.”
Yet so far without a single fatality! No fisticuffs or riots or bombings attributed to the debate or the public vote. Not one incident.
Hammet may sound high-minded, throwing around words like “xenophobic,” but note his paranoia about his fellow citizens handling political issues. Moreover, he fails to recognize that the policy he sees as “anti-immigrant” is, in actual fact, overwhelmingly supported by immigrants.
So, who’s the xenophobe?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: HCR 5004 passed that committee and then passed the House on a vote of 98 to 20. The amendment now awaits action in the Kansas State Senate in order to be referred to the voters.
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