After San Francisco voted to allow non-citizens to vote in school-board elections, as of November, many began to wonder what citizenship means in the United States.
That question was to put to 428 House members on Sept. 26 in the form of House Resolution 1071, with 65 percent essentially saying they agreed that “allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of U.S. citizens.”
The measure was approved with 279 ayes and 72 nos, mostly along party lines; 49 Democrats voted in favor of the resolution. Another 69, all Democrats, voted “present” while another eight—four Democrats and four Republicans—were nonvoters.
Put another way, 37 percent of all Democrats voted against it, while less than half of a percent—just one individual—of Republicans did.
“In this country, the right to vote is reserved exclusively for United States citizens,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) tweeted after the vote. “Allowing those who are here illegally the right to vote in American elections would be nothing short of an affront to the very principles upon which our nation was built.”
Of those who replied to The Epoch Times’ request for comment about why they voted against it, most said they saw it as a political ploy to make Democrats looks bad before the midterms.
However, at least one of the naysayers defended his vote by saying that people who aren’t citizens but pay taxes should have the right to vote.
Similar to San Francisco; Mount Ranier, Washington state; and College Park and Takoma Park in Maryland allow non-residents to vote in municipal elections, as do cities in nine other states.
Still, others complained that the resolution didn’t take into account other threats to the democratic process, such as foreign entities meddling in U.S. elections.
“The resolution fails to shed light on foreign threats and Russian interference in our elections,” said Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas).
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the sponsor of the resolution, said he introduced the measure because, in addition to diluting U.S. democracy, it’s unfair to immigrants who have gone through the legal immigration process to become citizens.