Portland Charter Commission Thread: legal non-citizen voting rights
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I am surprised that a search came up with nothing on the Portland Charter Commission. Below is a email from the League of Young Voters.
STORM CITY HALL WITH THE LEAGUE THIS THURSDAY!
Stand up for non-citizen voting rights!
We need your help on an important social-justice issue. The League is working to win legal non-citizen voting rights in Portland. This issue will be coming before the Portland Charter Commission this THURSDAY, February 11, at 5:30pm.
Imagine you are a recent and LEGAL immigrant to Portland. Perhaps you came here from Somalia or the Sudan. Perhaps you are a refugee from a country that is in political and economic turmoil. You live in Portland. You pay taxes in Portland. Your children go to Portland schools. But you have no say in basic city services. You have no say in how your tax money is spent. You have no say in how the public schools educate your children.
This is taxation without representation. This is the issue that our country was founded on!
Through the Charter Commission, we have the chance to remedy this problem. We could change our city's constitution and allow legal non-citizens to vote in local elections.
And you can help.
Please speak out in support of legal non-citizen voting at the Charter Commission meeting:
When: THIS Thursday, February 11th (public hearing starts at 5:30pm)
Where : Portland City Hall, City Council Chambers
They will be voting on this on Thursday, February 24, 2010, so there is no time to waste!
Hope to see you there!
Rock on,
The League
PS - We have been getting a number of questions regarding non-citizen voting rights. Click here for a list of FAQ's
Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com
If memory serves me Naran, what came up last year was the idea of second home owners having the ability to vote in local issues, such as Town Meetings. This is similar but different in that these people are not second homeowners voting somewhere else, they aren't voting anywhere. I still don't support it. Once your affairs are in order and you become a citizen, THEN, you get to vote.
Aha!!!! Now, about that excise tax....
Never let it be said there's no common ground, TM.
:)
Not a good idea IMO. Become a citizen and then vote. Heck, anyone under the age of 18 who is a citizen is being taxed without representation.
Posted: 12:00 AM
Updated: 12:54 AM
Non-citizen voting drive to start
The effort aims to get the question of giving non-citizens the right to vote on the Nov. 2 ballot.
By Tom Bell tbell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND — ...snip
A... committee plans to meet at 10 a.m. at City Hall to deliver an affidavit initiating a petition... To put the question to voters in November, the committee must gather the signatures of about 4,500 registered Portland voters by July 14.
...snip
The effort to start a petition drive began...after the Portland Charter Commission voted 7-5 to reject a proposal to put the issue on the ballot in November.
***************
So, they have to find 4,500 registered US citizen voters in Portland who are willing to give away that right, gratis, to someone who isn't a US citizen, and likely hasn't even tried.
I'm sorry, but I hope they fail completely, utterly, and miserably.
They will have the benefit of the primary which should draw about 5,000 to the polls in Portland (comparable to the 4,600 who voted in 2006 in the primary). There were no referendum questions to bring unenrolleds to the June 2006 vote, so I could see another 500 come to vote on the bonds.
If they get a third to sign at the polls, that would leave them 3,000 to collect outside the polls. The league of pissed of voters should be able to do that.
Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com
I hope they find it a little harder to accomplish than anticipated. Even people I know who could be otherwise described as very liberal thought this was a horrible idea when it was proposed statewide last year.
I predict that The League has an excellent shot to get this on the ballot.
I see your prediction, and raise it with another - that if the measure does make the ballot, it will be summarily assassinated by a large voter margin.
Unfortnately, getting it on the ballot will ultimately hurt the elected mayor effort with the city charter approval being on the same ballot and confuse voters. (The county charter is also being approved at the same election. There will be a lot of things for Portland voters to vote on in November.)
Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com
Is Charter Commission writing a new charter or amending the existing one?
The reason I ask is how does one go about proposing an amendment to a charter that has not been written?
They are amending the existing charter.
At tonight's city council meeting I discovered a flaw that the commission needs to fix.
Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com
How about a petition that allows only those with a mortgage or outright property ownership to vote? Makes as much sense as this non-citizen petition effort.
Do these people have an aversion to becoming citizens first?
Naran, I went to the comm. hearing in Augusta last year and it was to let non-citizens vote in municipal elections. It was also orchestrated. There were probably a dozen and a half of us there first thing in the morning who sat there all morning and at noon the chairman announced lunch and that the hearing on voting would be after lunch. That was the first time we were told of a time for the topic. When we came back the room was full as well as standing room only plus two other rooms. A man sitting beside me asked , 'HOW COME THEY ALL KNEW WHAT TIME THIS WAS COMING UP WITHOUT EVEN BEING HERE , BUT WE DIDN'T." All the additional people were supporters of non citizen voting.
They are not citizens!!!!!!!!!!! They have no voting rights.
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Didn't this legislation come up in Augusta last year? I recall a thread on this issue last fall.
The overwhelming sentiment was that voting is a citizen right, duty and privilege - and should not be extended to non-citizens, whether they're legal being beside the point.