Finally, a non-insane ruling from the high court of New York State:
Breanna Morello
@BreannaMorello
New York's highest court just ruled against NYC's law allowing non-citizens to vote.
Voting is limited to citizens, the court ruled.
It was a 6-to-1 decision.
New York's top court has struck down a law that would have let noncitizens vote in New York City elections, with the court's progressive majority overwhelmingly siding with Republicans who challenged the idea.
The law would have made more than 800,000 people eligible to vote in municipal contests such as mayoral races.
"We file some lawsuits that are stretches," said Joe Borelli, the former Republican minority leader of the New York City Council and one of the plaintiffs who challenged the law. "This one was, from the beginning, an open-shut case."
The law was approved in the waning days of Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration. When neither he nor successor Eric Adams issued a veto, it automatically became law in early 2022.
The legal battles since then have centered on language in the state constitution that says "every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people."
Republicans argued that this prohibits all noncitizens from casting ballots. Democrats on the City Council who defended the law said this language should be viewed as a floor rather than a ceiling, and that local governments have the power to expand the franchise further if they wish.
In a decision handed down by the Court of Appeals on Thursday, the judges brushed off the Democratic argument by a 6-1 margin.
"Under that interpretation, municipalities are free to enact legislation that would enable anyone to vote -- including ... thirteen-year-old children," Chief Judge Rowan Wilson wrote for the majority.
"It is plain from the language and restrictions contained in [the state constitution] that 'citizen' is not meant as a floor, but as a condition of voter eligibility: the franchise extends only to citizens whose right to vote is established by proper proofs," Wilson wrote.
In some related immigration news:
"We Finally Got You:" ICE arrests illegal alien who made herself a cause celebre when she moved herself and her three children into a church basement and demanded it provide her sanctuary.
'We Finally Got You.' Immigrant-Rights Advocate Arrested in Colorado.
Jeanette Vizguerra, who made national news evading deportation in a church basement, is the latest activist to be taken into custody by federal immigration agents.
An undocumented woman in Denver who became a symbol of immigrant resistance during President Trump's first term as she evaded deportation was arrested at work on Monday by federal immigration agents, her family and immigrant activists said.
Jeanette Vizguerra, 53, had been on her break at a Target store near Denver when immigration agents took her into custody, said Jordan Garcia, an immigrant-rights advocate with the American Friends Service Committee who has known Ms. Vizguerra for 15 years.
Recounting details of the arrest that Ms. Vizguerra had relayed to her family, Mr. Garcia said one of the agents told her, "We finally got you."
Ms. Vizguerra drew national attention when, in early 2017, she packed her clothes and moved with her three youngest children into a church basement in Colorado, hoping that the sanctuary of a house of worship would protect her from Mr. Trump's deportation plans. In 2021, she received a one-year stay of deportation from the Biden administration, but friends said Tuesday she was aware of her peril.
Her detention has already stirred a backlash from Colorado Democratic politicians and immigrant-rights supporters, who accused the Trump administration of trying to silence critics of its immigration crackdown.
Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver condemned Ms. Vizguerra's arrest as a "Putin-style persecution of political dissidents" that had ensnared a working-class mother who had dedicated her life to helping other undocumented immigrants.
Deal. We wanted to throw your woke ass in jail anyway.