nothin DeStefano Envisions A New Voting Frontier | New Haven Independent

DeStefano Envisions A New Voting Frontier

First African-Americans got the vote. Then women. Now it’s immigrants’ turn.

Mayor John DeStefano presented that natural trajectory of American historical voting rights as he began selling a new campaign for state approval to let non-citizen New Haveners — whether they’re living here legally or not — vote in municipal elections.

DeStefano plans to ask a state legislative committee to introduce a bill in the upcoming session to give New Haven approval to offer non-citizen residents that vote.

The story hit big after an impromptu disclosure to the Independent Tuesday afternoon. Passionate reactions and questions flooded City Hall and news organizations.

Meanwhile, the secretary of the state’s office is questioning the legality of DeStefano’s proposal, suggesting a state constitutional amendment may be needed first, Mary O’Leary reports in this Register article.

In the wake of the fallout, DeStefano met with reporters Wednesday in the mayor’s conference room in City Hall to explain the rationale behind his latest immigrant-friendly proposal. (Click on the play arrow for highlights.) His administration previously made national headlines by introducing an immigrant-friendly municipal ID card and having the police issue a general order directing cops not to check immigration papers on routine police calls. A vibrant Ecuadorian community, among others, has grown in town along with those measures.

As with his earlier policy initiatives, DeStefano finds himself serving as a spokesman of sorts for a different direction in American policy toward immigrants, amid an anti-immigrant wave in other regions of the country and crackdowns against newcomers who lack legal permission to be here.

DeStefano said roughly 10,000 to 12,000 undocumented immigrants live in New Haven. He said they should participate in local elections.

All I’m just saying is that like women and African-Americans before them, this is a class of individuals that are precluded from having a say in the community in which they’re a part of.

I think it’s time — like it became time for women and African-Americans — to look at what their voting rights are,” DeStefano said.

Several Maryland municipalities already allow non-citizen voting, including Takoma Park, which granted illegal immigrants the right to vote in 1992. Chicago allows non-citizens to vote in school board elections. The proposal has failed in some other cities, such as San Francisco and Portland, Maine.

DeStefano proposes asking the state legislature, in its next session that runs from February to May, to create a pilot program that would allow non-citizens to vote. That includes not just undocumented immigrants, but the roughly 5,000 non-citizens who teach and study at Yale as well as the 200 refugees who arrive in New Haven per year. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Tuesday came out against the idea. (Read about that here.)

I’m just saying if you live here, you work here, you pay taxes here — I think it’s reasonable that you have a say about what goes on,” DeStefano said at the Tuesday afternoon session.

I agree citizenship is a special thing,” DeStefano said. But the federal government has failed to implement a coherent immigration policy or create a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented residents who live in the nation. While the federal government has been moving to deport more undocumented immigrants, the Internal Revenue Services has been happy to collect income tax revenue from many of them, DeStefano pointed out.

The mayor said he has been clear with undocumented residents: We expect you to pay taxes,” not to break laws, and we expect you to be part of building the fabric of the place.”

DeStefano called his latest proposal all-American.

I think a fundamental value that’s inscribed in the Statue of Liberty that we send all our children to visit is [the idea that] the uniqueness and distinctiveness of this nation has been built on robust immigration policies. One of the reasons we’ve become an economically and morally powerful country is because of immigration,” he said.

Do I understand that folks have frustrations and fears? Sure I do, because my grandparents were subject to it as Italian Catholics.”

Those fears are unfounded, the mayor argued.

When the city launched the municipal ID card, you would have thought the world was going to end. Well the world didn’t end.” The program saved seniors money on drivers licenses and promoted better relationships between cops and community, he argued.

I understand why people are afraid of change, but I think it’s a change that’s consistent with the core value of America — a very optimistic, powerful, positive vision of America.”

I don’t think we need to be afraid of these folks,” he continued. While I understand people’s concerns, I think if they scratch their own skin a little bit, they’ll find that they are the same concerns that were expressed about their parents and grandparents years ago.”

Muro Presses Mayor

As he pitched the new plan, WTNH’s Jamie Muro challenged the mayor. He questioned why voting rights should be extended to those who have broken immigration law.

Let me get you there a different way,” DeStefano replied.

What it means to be a citizen, and what the rights and privileges of citizenship are have changed over time,” as the Constitution extended voting rights to African-Americans and women. The new proposal is consistent with [a pattern of] always broadening the meaning of citizenship.”

He refuted the notion that he’s just trying to create a new bloc of voters to reelect him.

Believe me, I don’t think this is necessarily, like, a big win in electoral politics, because it’s a change and people get nervous about change.

I think it’s consistent with what America has done. And I think it’s like a lot of things in life — when you first hear about it, you think the world’s going to end. When you then reflect back on it, I think it’s like the Resident ID card program here in New Haven: Most people feel pretty good about it, and are now sort of thinking like, What was the big deal with this thing?’”

Nationally, a movement to grant non-citizen immigrants local voting rights has sprung up in close to two dozen states,” according to Michele Wucker, president of the World Policy Institute and author of Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right.

The idea is that when you live in a city, you are essentially a citizen of that city, which is separate form federal or national citizenship,” Wucker said Tuesday. The logic is that everybody is better off when everyone on their block and in their town has a stake in staying on top of issues and working together and to get safe and clean streets, good schools, reliable transportation, and good health care.

The other part of the argument is that from the beginning of U.S. history until the 1920s, non-citizen voting was very common, at one point in 44 states and territories, at various levels. The movement now is for local elections. In most cases, with the exceptions of school boards, it’s for people who have their papers, who are legal. This is not illegal immigrants voting for president.”

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