Opponents of a Santa Ana ballot measure that would authorize illegal-immigrant voting hope recent, legal immigrants will rally to their side.
Opponents of the latest effort to approve illegal-immigrant voting in a California city believe they have a winning strategy that will defeat a ballot measure in Santa Ana and that could be used to stymie the noncitizen-voting movement in other parts of the state as well.
Measure DD, which is on the Santa Ana ballot on Tuesday, would authorize illegal immigrants who reside in Orange County’s second-largest city to vote in municipal elections. By a 4-3 vote, the city council added the measure to the ballot last fall.
More than 300,000 people live in Santa Ana, and the city serves as the county seat.
Supporters of the measure, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say that about a quarter of city residents can’t participate in elections because they aren’t citizens, and that allowing them to vote would make “city-wide elections fair and inclusive.”
“Many have lived here for decades and contribute greatly to the local economy. They pay taxes, own homes and property, run local businesses, work and raise families in Santa Ana,” backers of DD wrote in an official argument of support. “They should be able to vote for the city officials who make decisions impacting their daily lives.”
But opponents of the measure say that allowing illegal immigrants to vote devalues citizenship. James Lacy, a longtime conservative activist and lawyer, said that the right to vote is the “crown jewel” and “the most precious right any citizen in the United States has.”
Lacy told National Review that his campaign, Santa Ana Citizens for Voting, is specifically targeting the many naturalized citizens of Santa Ana who came to the country legally and earned the right to vote after pledging allegiance to the United States.
He believes helping naturalized citizens understand the value of that earned right is the “key to defeating noncitizen voting measures throughout the state of California in communities that have high Hispanic, high Latino registration.”
“I am the son of an immigrant. My mother was born in Russia, escaped communism,” Lacy said. “I understand immigrant families. And I inherently understand the value of achieving citizenship. I understand naturalization of citizenship, and how proud a person is who comes into the nation legally and becomes a citizen.”
Lacy, the founder of the United States Justice Foundation, has been a leader in the legal fights against noncitizen voting measures in San Francisco and Oakland. In recent years, voters in both Bay Area cities authorized illegal immigrants to vote in school-board elections, though Oakland leaders haven’t yet created a process for it to take effect.
Santa Ana, an increasingly diverse city in what used to be a conservative stronghold, is the next target for the illegal-immigrant voting advocates. Allowing illegal immigrants to vote will make Santa Ana a “stronger city,” they contend.
Lacy’s group successfully challenged their initial ballot language, which stated that the measure was aimed at noncitizens, “including those who are taxpayers and parents.” Lacy said that was an attempt to insert biased langauge onto the ballot.
Lacy said his campaign has put up about 1,500 street signs urging Santa Ana residents to “Protect Citizen’s Rights!” and to “Vote NO on DD.” The anti-DD effort has been joined by a coalition of business groups that are also opposing Santa Ana ballot initiatives that would impose rent control and raise the city council’s pay.
The Orange County Register’s editorial board has also endorsed the “no” vote on DD.
Opponents of Measure DD say that in addition to devaluing citizenship, it would also require the city to take over responsibility for running its elections from the Orange County Registrar of Voters. That responsibility includes ensuring that illegal immigrants aren’t given ballots for state and federal elections.
Lacy said the county competently manages elections with few complaints, while the city has no experience doing so. “They’re going to sort out how the ballot distribution would work,” he said. “It’s far beyond their competence.”
Opponents also argue that it would cost the city millions of dollars to take over and run its own elections. Supporters of DD accuse opponents of illegal-immigrant voting of using “scare tactics” to mislead voters, just like people who tried to prohibit Chinese immigrants from voting 100 years ago.
“Anti-immigrant and anti-suffrage movements were wrong a century ago. They are still wrong today,” DD supporters wrote in an official response to the measure’s opponents.
The effort to authorize noncitizen voting in Santa Ana comes as Republican leaders and activists have increasingly been raising concerns about the impact of noncitizens illegally voting in state and federal elections, which they are not allowed to do. Mainstream media outlets and election officials say the charge is overblown, that illegal immigrants rarely vote in state and national elections, and that there is no evidence that they vote in numbers large enough to change the outcome of those elections.
In addition to San Francisco and Oakland, Washington D.C. and several cities in Vermont and Maryland also allow illegal immigrants to vote in some municipal elections. In February, a New York state appeals court ruled that a law allowing noncitizens in New York City to vote in local elections was unconstitutional.
Republicans in states around the country have taken action to ban noncitizen voting in their elections. According to Politico, six states have already passed constitutional amendments barring noncitizen voting, while voters in eight other states are voting on measures this fall.
Lacy said he’s confident that Santa Ana voters will reject illegal-immigrant voting on Tuesday, and that could be the beginning of a trend in the Golden State.
“I believe this is going to be like plunging a dagger into the heart … of the whole noncitizen [voting] movement, at least in California,” he said. “And I’m absolutely delighted because if it is defeated we will have found the keys politically to how to stop this terrible movement against citizenship, that devalues citizenship.”