WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:04.440 I think the access to a valid is something very 2 00:00:04.720 --> 00:00:08.600 important to a lot of community members, to a lot 3 00:00:08.600 --> 00:00:11.920 of people, and I think sometimes the people who are 4 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:17.000 able to vote sometimes take that for granted and they 5 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:22.479 don't vote. That to me, is their denying their rights 6 00:00:22.560 --> 00:00:29.920 when other people wish they had those rights. 7 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:34.640 From Futuro media, it's Latino USA. I'm Maria in no Josa. Today, 8 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.000 New York City has a chance to become a national 9 00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:47.919 model by offering voting rights to non citizens. We are 10 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:52.840 all witnessing our country undergoing a contradictory era in terms 11 00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:57.360 of voting rights. Despite a devastating pandemic, turnout in the 12 00:00:57.400 --> 00:01:00.840 twenty twenty election was the highest we've seen in more 13 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:04.160 than a century. The results of that vote, though, have 14 00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:08.200 been doubted, denied and remained subject to drawn out controversy 15 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:13.560 and auditing, even though there's no evidence of fraud around here. 16 00:01:13.720 --> 00:01:16.759 It's suburbia, so you have that split vote, people feeling 17 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:18.360 disenfranchised one way or the other. 18 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:21.959 So this comes as Attorney General William Barr issues a 19 00:01:22.040 --> 00:01:26.600 new memo paving the way for prosecutors to investigate claims 20 00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:30.640 of voter fraud, even though none have been substantiated. Hey, 21 00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:34.919 Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are also supporting 22 00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:37.120 the president's refusal to concede. 23 00:01:37.800 --> 00:01:41.080 I believe that Donald Trump won the election. 24 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:44.759 I believe that they tried to steal the election. 25 00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:54.280 On January sixth thousands of people, either claiming fraud or 26 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:59.400 simply desperate for a different result, stormed the Capitol Building, 27 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:04.440 looting offices, waiving the Confederate flag, and crying for politicians' 28 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:08.440 heads to roll. In the months following that, hair brained 29 00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:13.360 and deadly insurrection, revolts against the vote and seemingly against 30 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:18.480 democracy itself have not disappeared. They've just taken a quieter 31 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:24.360 form in what's amounting to a concerted effort to block 32 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:30.639 the vote, especially of underrepresented groups. Republican led state legislators 33 00:02:30.880 --> 00:02:35.799 have proposed and enacted laws to severely restrict voting access. 34 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:41.840 Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp has signed a sweeping elections 35 00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:44.480 bill that civil rights groups are blasting as the worst 36 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:47.440 voter suppression legislation since the Jim Crow era. 37 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:49.760 There's a number of items here that have voting rights 38 00:02:49.760 --> 00:02:52.920 groups very concerned. Let's start with mail in ballots and 39 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.519 boxes there's restrictions on when people can actually access those boxes. 40 00:02:56.800 --> 00:02:58.679 Now it's only going to be early voting hours, and 41 00:02:58.720 --> 00:03:01.520 there has to be a person physically standing over the 42 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:04.239 box when someone drops off their ballot. And if those 43 00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:06.720 conditions are not met, Stephanie, you could be looking at 44 00:03:06.760 --> 00:03:09.800 a civil penalty of twenty five thousand dollars. 45 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:13.320 We asking my Republican friends in Congress and states and 46 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:16.760 cities and counties to stand up for God's sake and 47 00:03:16.880 --> 00:03:21.040 help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and 48 00:03:21.320 --> 00:03:25.040 a sacred right to vote. 49 00:03:26.320 --> 00:03:27.520 Have your no shame. 50 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:34.520 The moves limit how, where and when people can cast 51 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:39.320 a ballot. Overall, nearly four hundred voter suppression bills have 52 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:43.680 been proposed in forty eight states this year. All are 53 00:03:43.720 --> 00:03:46.880 part of a tide of anti voting bills that first 54 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.400 term Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock has called Jim Crow twenty 55 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:55.080 twenty one. It's a reference to the often violent codes 56 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:59.600 instituted after the Civil War that persecuted black people and 57 00:03:59.720 --> 00:04:01.560 target potential voters. 58 00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:04.720 We may be tempted to dissect these bills as if 59 00:04:04.760 --> 00:04:09.200 analyzing them piece by piece makes them more rational, But 60 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:15.560 that narrow analysis only obscures the larger, unmistakable picture. This 61 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:21.039 is a full fledged assault on voting rights, unlike anything 62 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:24.160 we have seen since the era of gem quote. 63 00:04:24.279 --> 00:04:29.359 Twenty two of those bills have already become law. Meanwhile, 64 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:33.279 New York, the largest city in the United States, is 65 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:37.040 taking the right to vote a step further, seeking to 66 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:42.679 extend the franchise to non citizens. If passed, the bill 67 00:04:42.760 --> 00:04:46.359 called Our City, Our Vote would allow non citizens with 68 00:04:46.520 --> 00:04:51.240 work authorization, people with Green cards, data, or temporary protected 69 00:04:51.279 --> 00:04:56.440 status to vote in all municipal elections. We will also 70 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.520 open the gate for the largest edition of eligible voters 71 00:04:59.760 --> 00:05:04.200 in fifty years. Producer John Washington in New York City 72 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:06.719 brings us the story. 73 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:12.520 Amid voter suppression bills proposed in almost every single state, 74 00:05:13.080 --> 00:05:15.160 there are also efforts to move in the opposite direction. 75 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.200 Two federal bills, for the People Act and the John 76 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:23.240 Lewis Voting Rights Act, both seek to nationalized voter registration 77 00:05:23.400 --> 00:05:26.920 and mail in voting standards, as well as reinstitute protections 78 00:05:26.960 --> 00:05:30.359 from the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act. But with 79 00:05:30.440 --> 00:05:34.560 Congress at loggerheads, passage of the bills is unlikely. New 80 00:05:34.640 --> 00:05:38.279 York's Our City our Vote bill meanwhile, could add nearly 81 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:41.560 one million registered voters to the city. The move would 82 00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:44.839 be the largest expansion of the franchise since nineteen seventy one, 83 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:48.039 a half century ago, when the twenty sixth Amendment lowered 84 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:52.919 the voting age from twenty one to eighteen. All of 85 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:56.839 this raises some basic questions about democracy. Who are counted 86 00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:00.640 as the people when the people supposedly rule? What happens 87 00:06:00.640 --> 00:06:03.200 to a government of and for the people when millions 88 00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:06.520 are left out of key decisions. What about the rallying 89 00:06:06.520 --> 00:06:10.960 cry of the American Revolution, no taxation without representation, when 90 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:13.599 so many in this country are taxed and have zero 91 00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:17.200 say in who represents them. I recently spoke with some 92 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:19.280 of the advocates for the New York City Bill and 93 00:06:19.440 --> 00:06:22.600 people who could become eligible to vote about what casting 94 00:06:22.640 --> 00:06:25.600 the ballot means to them. I also delved into the 95 00:06:25.640 --> 00:06:28.640 history of non citizen voting in this country. What I 96 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:34.640 found might surprise you. Lucia Aguilrare, whose voice you heard 97 00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:36.880 at the beginning of this story, has been living in 98 00:06:36.880 --> 00:06:39.640 New York City since she was three years old. She 99 00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:42.360 works at a nonprofit in East Harlem, where for the 100 00:06:42.440 --> 00:06:45.920 last sixteen years, She's helped manage a community food bank. 101 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:49.560 She has a Green card, is deeply involved in local politics, 102 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:52.080 but still has years to wait until she can apply 103 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:54.760 for citizenship and pull the lever on voting day. 104 00:06:55.400 --> 00:06:58.400 You know, growing up here, going to school, you learn 105 00:06:58.440 --> 00:07:02.440 about the democratic system, and I believe in it and 106 00:07:02.520 --> 00:07:05.640 that we all have a say when we vote. 107 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:09.680 But that is exactly what Aguila doesn't have. She's a 108 00:07:09.760 --> 00:07:12.600 New Yorker through and through, but simply doesn't have the 109 00:07:12.640 --> 00:07:15.000 same say in the direction of our city as many 110 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:16.000 of her neighbors. 111 00:07:16.400 --> 00:07:19.560 I wasn't born in the United States, but you know, 112 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:22.680 I'm a New Yorker at heart, and I wish I 113 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:27.160 could participate in these events. You know, I'm dying. I 114 00:07:27.200 --> 00:07:29.560 have like a countdown to when I could submit my 115 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:33.360 citizen and applications so I could, you know, finally get 116 00:07:33.520 --> 00:07:34.160 to vote. 117 00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:38.400 Immigrants can obtain legal residency through just a handful of channels. 118 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:42.080 Some are granted hard to get asylum or refugee status, 119 00:07:42.440 --> 00:07:45.760 which the government has been over recent years increasingly miserly 120 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:49.520 and bestowing. Others are sponsored by their employer or marry 121 00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:52.520 a US citizen, and very few are lucky enough to 122 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:55.520 win the Green Card Lottery, a federal program that benefits 123 00:07:55.520 --> 00:07:58.920 fifty thousand foreign citizens every year. All have to wait 124 00:07:58.920 --> 00:08:01.040 at least five years before they can apply to become 125 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:04.280 a US citizen. In the case of Lucia, that won't 126 00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:05.920 happen until twenty twenty five. 127 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:11.760 A lot of people who know me, they acts, so, 128 00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:14.760 who did you vote for or who are you voting for? 129 00:08:15.560 --> 00:08:19.520 And I can't vote? And you know, it's sometimes I 130 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.200 feel ashamed not to be able to tell them, Oh, 131 00:08:22.280 --> 00:08:27.040 I can't vote. It's it's just sad that, yes, like 132 00:08:27.320 --> 00:08:33.200 we are sharing this community, but I don't have a 133 00:08:33.240 --> 00:08:33.720 say in it. 134 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.560 The bill Our City Are Vote is said to give 135 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:41.720 people like Lucia that say. The New York Immigration Coalition 136 00:08:41.960 --> 00:08:44.880 is one of over sixty organizational backers of the bill. 137 00:08:45.520 --> 00:08:49.520 Paul Westrich, their senior manager of Democracy Policy, explain to 138 00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:51.079 me why they're pushing for the proposal. 139 00:08:51.679 --> 00:08:54.040 While we live in a democracy, we have, as I said, 140 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:57.360 one million New Yorkers who can't vote in their local 141 00:08:57.400 --> 00:09:00.800 elections for mayor, for city council, for the folks who 142 00:09:00.800 --> 00:09:04.160 are making policy and budget decisions that affect their lives 143 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.880 on a day to day basis. So these are residents 144 00:09:07.920 --> 00:09:11.360 of our city who live here, work here, go to 145 00:09:11.400 --> 00:09:14.640 school here. They are raising families here, they are paying 146 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:17.280 taxes here, and they deserve to have a say in 147 00:09:17.559 --> 00:09:21.520 the direction of our city. Non citizens represent well over 148 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:24.800 a million New York residents. They come from all over 149 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:28.000 the world, with the largest foreign born populations belonging to 150 00:09:28.040 --> 00:09:31.560 the Dominican Republic, China, and Mexico. According to the most 151 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:36.679 recent statistics, immigrant New Yorkers, both naturalized citizens and non citizens, 152 00:09:36.840 --> 00:09:40.560 pay for ten billion dollars of taxes a year. Non 153 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:45.000 citizens contribute nearly three billion into that total. New Yorkers 154 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:47.000 used to be able to vote in school board elections, 155 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:50.600 but after years of mismanagement and complaints, school boards were 156 00:09:50.640 --> 00:09:52.959 eliminated in the city in two thousand and two. Their 157 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:56.960 control handed it over to the mayor and an appointed board. Currently, 158 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:00.800 New York also runs participatory budgeting, which allows all residents 159 00:10:00.800 --> 00:10:03.920 to vote on the allocation of some municipal discretionary funds. 160 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:07.959 But as Paul says, there is nothing that replaces the 161 00:10:08.040 --> 00:10:11.480 right to vote for your elected officials, your elected leadership. 162 00:10:11.800 --> 00:10:15.320 There is no substitute accountability, nothing that will substitute for 163 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:16.720 the right to vote. 164 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:21.400 The bill comes at a critical time, especially over the 165 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:24.880 past year. The city's debt two and reliance on immigrant 166 00:10:24.880 --> 00:10:30.480 workers has been profoundly painfully underscored as the pandemic grip 167 00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:33.640 New York in twenty twenty. Immigrant workers were critical in 168 00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:37.280 holding the city together, keeping New Yorkers fed, caring for 169 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:40.600 the sick, and keeping the city itself alive. And yet 170 00:10:40.640 --> 00:10:42.600 they also suffered the worst of the pandemic. 171 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:48.200 Half of our frontline essential workers are immigrants. One in 172 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:52.080 five of those essential workers is a non citizen New Yorker. 173 00:10:52.720 --> 00:10:57.520 These are our nurses and medical professionals. These are are 174 00:10:57.559 --> 00:11:00.240 the folks who have been preparing and delivering our food, 175 00:11:00.400 --> 00:11:04.840 keeping our buildings clean, keeping our grocery and pharmacy shelves stocks. 176 00:11:05.280 --> 00:11:07.120 So this is a population of folks that we have 177 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:10.640 classified as essential to our city. New York City cannot 178 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:15.000 run without them. So how can we ask these New 179 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:19.160 Yorkers to quite literally risk their lives to keep us 180 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:23.079 healthy and to keep this city running while also then 181 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:26.520 denying them the right to vote in how their taxes 182 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:29.760 are spent and who represents them in government. We're telling 183 00:11:29.800 --> 00:11:33.200 immigrant New Yorkers that we need them to continue to 184 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:35.720 put their bodies at risk, but that we don't really 185 00:11:35.760 --> 00:11:39.240 care about their voices. And that is not the New 186 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:41.200 York City that I think most of us believe that 187 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:43.720 we live in or want to live in. I spoke 188 00:11:43.760 --> 00:11:46.000 with one of those frontline workers Paul mentioned. 189 00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:49.200 My name is Hinna Navid. I'm thirty one years old. 190 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:50.959 I am a registered nurse. 191 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:54.320 She's also a recent law graduate from Quney School of Law, 192 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:57.320 and when we spoke, was serving as a campaign manager 193 00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:00.880 for says At vodagas a candidate for Staten Island Bureau President. 194 00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:04.920 Despite being unable to vote herself, Hinna has been door 195 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:07.640 knocking and volunteering to get out the vote for years. 196 00:12:08.880 --> 00:12:13.480 A fight for justice and dignity for undocumented immigrants has 197 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:15.480 been something that I've been very passionate about for a 198 00:12:15.559 --> 00:12:18.160 very long time. I am a doctor recipient, which means 199 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:21.440 I'm undocumented. I have a work authorization that I have 200 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:24.680 to renew every two years that allows me to work 201 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:28.240 to pay taxes, but doesn't give me a path to citizenship. 202 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:32.040 And so for me, what that has essentially boiled down to, 203 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:36.240 for me and millions of undocumented immigrants, is taxation without representation. 204 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:39.880 Hinna is now pursuing a career in law and politics, 205 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.000 but her experience as a nurse in the time of 206 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:45.240 COVID and some of the dynamics and inequalities of the 207 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:48.440 city it helped expose, has left a substantial mark on 208 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:49.160 her outlook. 209 00:12:49.760 --> 00:12:52.480 I remember during the height of the pandemic being an 210 00:12:52.600 --> 00:12:56.280 essential worker as a registered nurse, literally being on the 211 00:12:56.280 --> 00:13:00.320 front lines of this pandemic, working in different settings and 212 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:05.720 being deemed essential. However, not essential enough for citizenship, not 213 00:13:05.800 --> 00:13:06.720 essential enough. 214 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:07.600 For the right to vote. 215 00:13:07.880 --> 00:13:10.960 How can the city so obviously depend on and tax 216 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:14.120 and in large part thrive because of one segment of 217 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:18.600 the population, and yet in many ways ignore them. Our city, 218 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:21.160 our vote would give people like Lucia and Hinna the 219 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:24.200 chance to go to the polls, to hold the politicians 220 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:27.040 who make decisions over their lives and who spend their 221 00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:31.440 tax dollars accountable. It's, also, according to supporters, a down 222 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:34.599 payment on the basic health of the city, a reaffirmation 223 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:38.440 of the very idea of democracy. Here's Paul of the 224 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:39.880 New York Immigration Coalition. 225 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:40.280 Again. 226 00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:43.200 The more folks who are in the process participating in 227 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:46.360 our democracy, the better it is for the entire city. 228 00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:50.400 This is an opportunity for New York City to really 229 00:13:50.520 --> 00:13:54.400 lead the country and lead the conversation in protecting and 230 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:55.920 expanding voting rights. 231 00:13:56.280 --> 00:13:59.000 Granting non citizens the right to vote may sound like 232 00:13:59.040 --> 00:14:03.520 a radical project and certainly attracts its critics. Stanley Renchin, 233 00:14:03.800 --> 00:14:06.920 a professor of political science at City University of New York, 234 00:14:07.160 --> 00:14:09.760 sees voting as an incentive for people too. As he 235 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:11.439 put it, jump the line. 236 00:14:11.800 --> 00:14:14.880 When people jump the line and they are given an 237 00:14:14.880 --> 00:14:17.920 incentive to do it and a reward for doing it, 238 00:14:17.920 --> 00:14:21.360 it underminds faith in the system as a whole, and 239 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:24.880 that's a very big and important issue for America as 240 00:14:24.880 --> 00:14:25.400 a country. 241 00:14:29.760 --> 00:14:32.280 It's worth noting that for many people across the world, 242 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:35.360 there really is no line, and migrating legally to the 243 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:39.880 United States is an impossibility. Still, allowing non citizens to 244 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:42.120 vote is a practice with a long history in this 245 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:44.800 country and isn't so rare in other parts of the 246 00:14:44.840 --> 00:14:49.600 world either, including in Ireland, Sweden, and Australia. There's also 247 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:53.040 a number of US cities that already let non citizens 248 00:14:53.160 --> 00:14:53.920 cast the ballot. 249 00:14:56.240 --> 00:14:59.040 Coming up on Latino USA, we dive into the history 250 00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:03.240 of immigrant voting rights inside and outside of the United States. 251 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:06.200 We'll also hear from people on both sides of the 252 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:08.720 New York voting build debate, as well as some non 253 00:15:08.760 --> 00:15:12.160 citizens hoping to be able to head to the polls soon. 254 00:15:12.680 --> 00:15:55.960 Stay with us, Hey. 255 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:56.600 We're back. 256 00:15:57.200 --> 00:15:59.360 In the first part of our show, we looked at 257 00:15:59.400 --> 00:16:03.440 the history of non citizen voting in the US. We're 258 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:06.520 going to hear the arguments from people for and against 259 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:09.760 the proposed bill in New York City and how this 260 00:16:09.800 --> 00:16:13.280 could influence similar actions in the rest of the country. 261 00:16:13.720 --> 00:16:15.840 Here's producer John Washington. 262 00:16:18.520 --> 00:16:21.480 Jamie Raskin is the Maryland congressman who was tapped to 263 00:16:21.560 --> 00:16:25.400 lead former President Trump's second impeachment trial. But long before 264 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:28.600 he entered into politics, he wrote an influential article in 265 00:16:28.640 --> 00:16:31.680 The Law Review Journal that was passed around among voting 266 00:16:31.720 --> 00:16:35.240 rights advocates. It was a key resource in implementing non 267 00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:39.040 citizen voting rights in Tacoma Park, Maryland. Non citizens in 268 00:16:39.080 --> 00:16:41.760 Tacoma Park have been voting a municipal election since the 269 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:46.800 nineteen nineties without either uproar or issue. In fact, Maryland 270 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:49.440 is a state with the most cities eleven in total, 271 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:52.440 that allow non citizens to vote for the local leaders. 272 00:16:53.520 --> 00:16:56.000 Other states where foreign residents can vote are Illinois and 273 00:16:56.040 --> 00:17:00.600 California's Raskin. 274 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:05.000 For most of American history, states granted voting rights at 275 00:17:05.040 --> 00:17:07.880 the local level to non citizens. This was a standard 276 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:10.680 practice in the eighteenth nineteenth centuries, implied by the property 277 00:17:10.760 --> 00:17:15.159 qualification for voting. Prior to the Civil War, pro slavery 278 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:20.240 forces tried to destroy non citizen voting because immigrants overwhelmingly 279 00:17:20.280 --> 00:17:23.960 opposed slavery, But Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party vigorously 280 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:27.320 defended the practice of extending suffrage rights to permanent residents 281 00:17:27.560 --> 00:17:30.800 who were on the pathway to citizenship. The Republicans made 282 00:17:30.800 --> 00:17:35.080 the compelling argument that we all benefit when everyone participates 283 00:17:35.080 --> 00:17:38.359 in their communities. That argument is still compelling today. 284 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:42.280 To understand more of that history and the current practice 285 00:17:42.320 --> 00:17:44.600 of non citizen voting, I spoke with one of the 286 00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:47.960 global experts on a topic, Ron Heyduke. He is a 287 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:51.320 former director of New York City Voter Assistance Commission and 288 00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:55.040 currently professor at San Francisco State University. Ron is also 289 00:17:55.080 --> 00:17:58.680 the author of Democracy for All, Restoring immigrant voting rights 290 00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:00.960 in the United States. Here's Ron. 291 00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:06.600 Most Americans are very surprised to learn that non citizen 292 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:10.960 voting or immigrant voting is older than the country itself. 293 00:18:12.119 --> 00:18:15.600 Many of the early colonies allowed immigrants to vote and 294 00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:17.600 run for office, and they did. 295 00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:22.320 Ron explained that when Congress created new territories, it used 296 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:25.680 the appeal of non citizen voting to attract settlers, and. 297 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:31.959 When those territories became states, it kept that practiced intact, 298 00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:37.160 not only the promise of free land, again stolen from 299 00:18:37.320 --> 00:18:40.680 Native Americans, but real power and inclusion. 300 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:44.040 It's worth noting that Native Americans did not become US 301 00:18:44.080 --> 00:18:47.919 citizens and therefore couldn't vote in national elections until nineteen 302 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.320 twenty four after the Civil War, with the Reconstruction Amendments 303 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.639 the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, which abolished slavery and guaranteed 304 00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:59.119 equal protection of the laws and the right to vote, 305 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:03.439 a backlash and a backsliding in terms of voting rights, 306 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:12.480 especially in the South. White Southerners used poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, 307 00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:16.359 and brash violence, including lynchings, to try to scare Black 308 00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:20.520 people away from voting booths. The institution of Jim Crow 309 00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:24.920 also paradoxically occurred at the same time the South let 310 00:19:25.040 --> 00:19:29.200 more non citizens vote. An eighteen seventy four Supreme Court 311 00:19:29.280 --> 00:19:33.480 case minor v Happersit upheld the state's rights to implement 312 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:36.439 their own voting regulations, even if they were extending them 313 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:37.399 to non citizens. 314 00:19:38.760 --> 00:19:42.080 They used immigrant voting as a means to say that 315 00:19:42.119 --> 00:19:45.760 they're expanding the vote, but not for these folks, or 316 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:48.679 to say that it's only white males that are the 317 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:50.399 true stakeholders. 318 00:19:50.840 --> 00:19:53.480 But even as some non citizens were able to cast ballots, 319 00:19:54.080 --> 00:19:57.399 women were still officially denied the vote, and black people 320 00:19:57.440 --> 00:19:59.840 were largely blocked from the polls until the Voting Rights 321 00:19:59.800 --> 00:20:03.520 at of nineteen sixty five. This is Lyndon B. Johnson, 322 00:20:03.800 --> 00:20:05.720 the President who pushed to pass the bill. 323 00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:09.919 Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the 324 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.040 rights of man was to flourish, it must be rooted 325 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:18.639 in democracy. The most basic right of all was the 326 00:20:18.760 --> 00:20:23.880 right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, 327 00:20:23.920 --> 00:20:28.000 in large measure, is the history of expansion of that 328 00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:30.800 right to all of our people. 329 00:20:31.720 --> 00:20:33.920 But it was in the North where immigrant voting rights 330 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.080 were first scaled back, and by the late nineteen twenties 331 00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:40.480 most states and cities had stopped allowing non citizens access 332 00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:44.119 to the ballot. Well, voting has increasingly been restricted to 333 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:47.119 immigrants in the US, parts of Europe and Latin America 334 00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:50.800 have gone the other way, extending voting rights to non citizens. 335 00:20:51.280 --> 00:20:53.880 You can move to Ireland and in six months vote 336 00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:59.280 in national elections and they've seen significant turnout to good effect. Right, 337 00:20:59.320 --> 00:21:02.280 we've seen changes in policy, like in Sweden. There's in 338 00:21:02.520 --> 00:21:06.000 number of studies that have showed how when immigrants participate 339 00:21:06.560 --> 00:21:11.320 there's increases in and improvements in education policy and outcomes. 340 00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:15.320 So again, the evidence kind of overwhelmingly shows that there's 341 00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:18.400 a generally positive outcome. 342 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:21.240 In terms of our city, our vote. It's important to 343 00:21:21.280 --> 00:21:24.720 underscore that it's absolutely legal for cities and states to 344 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:29.240 allow residents. Citizens are not to vote. Well, it's illegal 345 00:21:29.280 --> 00:21:31.439 for non citizens to vote in federal elections and they 346 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:34.360 can face prison time if they try. There remains some 347 00:21:34.440 --> 00:21:36.400 dissonance in the interpretation of the law. 348 00:21:37.280 --> 00:21:41.680 That Constitution was admitted with people on a one man, 349 00:21:41.800 --> 00:21:45.000 one vote basis and was adopted by. 350 00:21:44.840 --> 00:21:48.439 Thee In nineteen sixty four, the Supreme Court took on 351 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:52.480 a case Reynald v. Simms, which addressed the unequal apportionment 352 00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:56.960 of state legislatures based on a fundamental principle of democracy. 353 00:21:57.560 --> 00:22:01.240 The justices struck down an Alabama law that crookedly carved 354 00:22:01.280 --> 00:22:06.040 up voting districts. As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, undoubtedly 355 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.800 the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a 356 00:22:08.840 --> 00:22:13.800 free and democratic society. In another voting rights case, Gravy 357 00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:18.240 Sanders from nineteen sixty three, just as William O. Douglas wrote, 358 00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:22.160 the conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence 359 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:26.560 to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to the fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth 360 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:32.000 amendments can mean only one thing, one person, one vote. 361 00:22:32.119 --> 00:22:35.520 But much like person used to legally signify only free 362 00:22:35.560 --> 00:22:39.240 white men, even today, the idea of one person, one 363 00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:42.880 vote isn't as simple as it sounds. This brings us 364 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:46.560 back to the idea of no taxation without representation and 365 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:50.760 other axiomatic slogans that drove and centered the original concepts 366 00:22:50.800 --> 00:22:55.119 of American government, and not just American government, but the 367 00:22:55.160 --> 00:22:58.760 principles of governance that were followed or least tales across 368 00:22:58.760 --> 00:23:02.919 the globe. Article twenty one of the United Nations nineteen 369 00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:06.639 forty eight Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that the 370 00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:08.960 will of the people shall be the basis of the 371 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:17.400 authority of government, but whose will. Grand conceptions of political 372 00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:20.159 equality are thrown out the window when it comes to immigrants. 373 00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:23.880 You can pay taxes, serve in the military, own property, 374 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:27.480 go to school, be a working, contributing, and fully engaged 375 00:23:27.480 --> 00:23:30.119 member of the community. Yet you can be arrested by 376 00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:33.919 immigration authorities while picking your kid up from school. In 377 00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:36.880 many states, you can't legally drive, and in almost all 378 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:40.840 cities you can't even vote for the mayor. Ron Hayduke, 379 00:23:41.080 --> 00:23:43.359 the expert we heard from in the first part, puts 380 00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:43.960 it this way. 381 00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:47.480 You know, it's basically about inclusion, it's about fairness. The 382 00:23:47.560 --> 00:23:51.960 idea is, if you pay taxes, if you're a community member, 383 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:54.880 you should have a say in Who are the representatives 384 00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:57.960 that enact law and policy that affects your lives on 385 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:01.800 a daily basis. You know, we're having a national sort 386 00:24:01.800 --> 00:24:06.600 of reckoning in some ways today regarding our inglorious past, 387 00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:11.320 from the displacement and genocide of Dative Americans, to the 388 00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:15.920 enslavement of African Americans, to the exclusion of women and 389 00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:20.320 other groups, or to their marginalization. You know, this question 390 00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:24.520 that's sort of burning and being debated in lots of ways. 391 00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:29.040 Who's an American? What's America? What's this American? Project about 392 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:31.720 and I think immigrant voting sort of helps cut to 393 00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:34.320 the heart of it because it gets at these questions 394 00:24:34.359 --> 00:24:37.199 about who are we, what is the best way that 395 00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:40.280 we should organize ourselves as a society, and questions of 396 00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:41.840 inclusion are at center. 397 00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:46.520 New York Councilman Idaniz Rodriguez, who sponsored the most recent 398 00:24:46.520 --> 00:24:50.520 iteration of Our City Our Vote bill, sees it pretty clearly. 399 00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:54.520 We have close to one million in Yorkers that they 400 00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:58.920 have green cars, they have working papers, they pay the taxes, 401 00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:02.000