Tag: illegal immigrants

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ideological culture Voting

Blood in the Streets?

voting, legislature, panic, hysteria

“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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media and media people partisanship Voting

Spilt Ink

Iowa, voting, elections, illegal immigration, newspaper, ink

“Iowans should vote no,” argues a Des Moines Register editorial, because defeating the Citizen Only Voting Amendment on the statewide ballot would “send a message — to legislators, to our neighbors at home and to the rest of the nation and world — that Iowans reject exclusion and suspicion and instead put a premium on inclusion and trust.”

Let’s unpack.

Ballotpedia summarizes Amendment 1 as prohibiting “state and local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote and allow 17-​year-​olds who will be 18 by the general election to vote in primary elections.”

Nothing suspicious there. But there is an exclusion, of course. The measure would exclude noncitizens from voting in state and local elections.

“The context,” or what the TDS-​afflicted newspaper has apoplectically convinced themselves is the context, “is repeated assertions by President Donald Trump” and other Republicans “that immigrants without citizenship frequently register to vote and vote (more often for Democrats).”

The actual context is simply whether the state constitution should proclaim that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote. A policy that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are unsuspiciously excluded from voting on, but which would have prevented the 19 U.S. cities now allowing noncitizens to vote, including in most cases those here illegally, from doing so.

The Register nonetheless declares that “a higher standard is called for when the enduring language of the state Constitution is involved. That document should emphasize what unites Iowans.”

Yet nothing has united legislators more than this Citizen Only Voting Amendment, which passed each chamber of the Legislature twice without a single dissenting vote. 

Bemoaning that “seven states have already, in the past six years, made identical or similar changes in their state constitutions,” The Register further complains that “this fall, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin join Iowa in voting on similar amendments.” 

The objection? “That’s a lot of ink spilt to enshrine imaginary protections against imaginary problems.”

These imaginative editors acknowledged, in the same piece, that “[e]xperts say it ties lawmakers’ hands from ever passing laws to permit residents without citizenship to vote in certain local or state elections, such as for school boards.”

Passing Amendment 1 means politicians at the capitol in Des Moines will have to go back to Iowa voters if they want to allow noncitizen voting.

No crying here over spilt ink.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture Voting

Democrats and Noncitizen Voting

Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? 

It depends. 

Which Democrats do you mean?

A clear majority of voters who identify as supporters of the Democratic Party oppose giving the vote to noncitizens. Specifically, they support the Citizen Only Voting Amendments (COVA) on the ballot this election in eight states — Idaho. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.* 

For instance, polling shows Democratic voters in North Carolina favor the only citizen voting measure by an eight to one margin. Among Republicans the margin is a whopping 22 to one. Most Democratic legislators joined every Republican in voting to place the amendment on the ballot, but less enthusiastically: 42 yes votes, 16 no votes and ten abstentions.

In Georgia, 70 percent of Democrats supported passing a Citizen Only Voting Amendment. Republican support was 93 percent with 76 percent of independents in favor. But while every Republican in the Peach State’s House of Representatives voted in the affirmative on HR780, not one single Democrat did so. 

Though not as lopsided as Republicans or independents, 83 percent of whom favor citizen only voting, 59 percent of Kentucky Democrats are supportive, a four to one margin. Yet, while every Republican legislator voted yes, less than one in five Democratic legislators were supportive. 

In Wisconsin, 76 percent of voters like the Citizen Only Voting Amendment, including 57 percent of Democrats residing outside the legislature. Inside the legislature, every single Democrat opposed the amendment. 

In this two-​year legislative cycle, votes were cast in 21 chambers in eleven states. The partisan difference between elected Republicans and Democrats was stark. Not a single Republican voted against the COVA, compiling over a thousand yes votes. Conversely, more Democratic legislators voted against COVA than for it.

Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? Most elected Democrats, yes. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Additionally, all 19 of the cities where noncitizens are now legally voting, including noncitizens in the country illegally, are very progressive. All are sanctuary cities and governed (nearly) exclusively by Democrats.

* Voters have previously passed COVAs in six other states going back to 2018: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio.

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