Non-Citizen Voting Is Wrong for NYC (and Everywhere Else)

By Rob Ortt

Thursday, December 09, 2021

 

The 2021 elections were nothing short of a disaster for far-left Democrats across our country. The results were no different here in New York, as Democratic candidates for district attorney were soundly defeated by Republicans on bellwether Long Island. All across our state, Republicans gained ground, even picking up Council seats in deep-blue New York City.

 

Simultaneously, three Democrat-sponsored statewide constitutional amendments, all initially assumed to be shoo-ins to pass, instead failed as voters wisely and correctly recognized them as hyper-partisan power grabs poorly disguised as reforms.

 

How have Democrats responded to these abysmal November results? By not changing a thing.

 

Democrats continue to dismiss the public good and try to angle instead for what benefits them. The latest example of this is in New York City, where Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez has put forth a proposal that would allow non-citizens to vote in elections under the guise of “municipal voters.”

 

This bill would give close to one million citizens of foreign countries the right to vote as if they were citizens here. It’s such a blatantly and boldly unconstitutional proposal that even leftist Mayor Bill de Blasio has questioned its legality.

 

If enacted, this proposal would undermine the fragile security of our electoral system and devalue the votes cast by legally and legitimately registered voters. This bill is also downright disrespectful to immigrants who rightly follow the legal process and work hard — sometimes for years — to become American citizens.

 

Even if civic responsibilities mean nothing to Councilman Rodriguez and his far-left allies, they mean a great deal to immigrants who become naturalized American citizens, raise their right hand, and swear an oath of allegiance to the United States of America and the values of this great nation. They earn and cherish the right to vote, which is a sacred part of being an American citizen.

 

This is only just the latest example of the far-left Democrats trying to change the rules in order to stack the odds in their favor at the ballot box. This proposal, like the recently failed statewide constitutional amendments, is part of a long pattern of Democrats trying to ram through policies thinly disguised as reforms but actually designed to devastate their political opponents. It’s not about doing the right thing; it’s about consolidating their own power.

 

Who could forget, for example, New York Democrats’ infamous “Green Light Law” in 2019? The bill, passed by the newly elected Democratic majority in the State Senate, gave drivers’ licenses to non-citizens. I vividly remember the debate as if it was yesterday, as my fellow Republicans and I predicted passage of the bill would lead to non-citizen voting.

 

Given this record, it is not unreasonable to predict that it won’t be too long before more Albany Democrats jump onto the far-left bandwagon and blatantly try to bring non-citizen voting to the state level. There is already a Democrat-sponsored bill to grant citizenship and voting rights to everyone residing in New York illegally, with free education and health care to boot.

 

I urge all City Council members who believe in our Constitution to reject Councilman Rodriguez’s proposal when it comes to a vote today. If it passes, the mayor should veto the bill. If he does not, a swift, constitutionally sound, and ultimately successful legal challenge will immediately follow.

 

I also urge continued vigilance by voters against these types of un-American proposals at the state level. Voters are seeing the far-left Democrats’ political power plays for what they are. All across our country, the election results on November 2 demonstrated a growing dislike for the radical agendas embraced by Democrats from President Biden right on down to locally elected officials.

 

You can be certain that at the state level, my Republican colleagues and I are committed to protecting our elections, preserving our Constitution, and opposing hyper-partisan assaults on our democracy.