San Francisco Proposition D

[Pangloss]

San Francisco is considering a proposition that will authorize legal and illegal residents (all non-citizens) who have children in a district public school to vote in district school board elections. The city voted down a similar measure in 2004.

 

"Pro" Argument

"Con" Argument

 

Interestingly, the "con" argument above comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, frequently cited by CTR/FNC as extremely liberal. Their argument is interesting:

 

... there is a big danger in trying to declare the worthiness of a certain group of residents to vote in certain elections. It's easy to see where this application of logic might lead. Advocates of voting rights for noncitizen parents might argue that they should also have a right to vote on bonds or parcel taxes to upgrade schools. Or, why wouldn't a contest for city supervisor, community college board, mayor or tax increases be just as important to a noncitizen parent with children in the city's public schools - or a noncitizen without children ... or a noncitizen with children attending private schools, for that matter?

 

Why not House member? Senator? President? The same logic applies -- the people elected to those offices have direct impact on the lives and futures of these residents, so shouldn't they have the right to vote? I agree, I think it's too dangerous a precedent, and should not be allowed.

 

But the issue faces an uphill legal battle even if authorized, because (according to the "con" argument cited above) the California Supreme Court has already decided that voters must be citizens. I don't know where the US Supreme Court stands, but I would be surprised if their position was not similar.

 

What do you think?

[Mr Skeptic]

Yeah, non-citizens voting would be problematic. Sure, it would be nice to ask their opinion on things, but not allow them to directly make demands. Though I wouldn't be opposed to making a bunch of them citizens if they're decent people. This I think is the problem, some want to make them citizens but can't so they try to at least make them citizen-like.

[padren]

I think it's symptomatic of a problem in how "citizens" are identified: we make special allowances for visitors, and means by which visitors can become permanent members of this society. Illegal immigration is tolerated (in my opinion) in a gray area due to imperfections in how we manage seasonal or temporary labor, but it becomes a real problem is when those people become in all but name become part of the citizenry. I don't understand why, if someone has already passed all the qualifications to be a legal permanent resident, that they can't continue to go through the regular legal process to become citizens - it's mostly a matter of time and a clean record at that point. Any problem with permanent residents who do follow the rules but can't become citizens for some reason is an issue for that process, but they already have a means to access the right to vote.

In my mind, there is no need to extend that extra benefit to permanent residents, and it would only serve to blur the distinction.

 

 

As for illegal immigrants, the issue gets so much more complex due to the fact we as a society apply market pressures to keep them coming, while punishing them for it, but that doesn't make them entirely without fault and also doesn't warrant giving them the right to vote. Expedience perhaps in solving the bloody problem, so they can either enter a process to become permanent residents or be genuinely deported without the mixed signals (seriously, can we please find a politician without illegal nannies and gardeners, etc?) muddying everything up.

 

 

The "pro" article talks a lot about the lack of representation among immigrants, but I find it false because frankly many citizens who do vote are immigrants - they just became citizens legally. If a lot of immigrants are caught in some sort of gridlock holding pattern, giving them additional rights while they wait only placates the issue somewhat, and doesn't solve the real problem, legal immigration gridlock.

 

I think it's symptomatic of a problem in how "citizens" are identified: we make special allowances for visitors, and means by which visitors can become permanent members of this society. Illegal immigration is tolerated (in my opinion) in a gray area due to imperfections in how we manage seasonal or temporary labor, but it becomes a real problem is when those people become in all but name become part of the citizenry. I don't understand why, if someone has already passed all the qualifications to be a legal permanent resident, that they can't continue to go through the regular legal process to become citizens - it's mostly a matter of time and a clean record at that point. Any problem with permanent residents who do follow the rules but can't become citizens for some reason is an issue for that process, but they already have a means to access the right to vote.

In my mind, there is no need to extend that extra benefit to permanent residents, and it would only serve to blur the distinction.

 

 

As for illegal immigrants, the issue gets so much more complex due to the fact we as a society apply market pressures to keep them coming, while punishing them for it, but that doesn't make them entirely without fault and also doesn't warrant giving them the right to vote. Expedience perhaps in solving the bloody problem, so they can either enter a process to become permanent residents or be genuinely deported without the mixed signals (seriously, can we please find a politician without illegal nannies and gardeners, etc?) muddying everything up.

 

 

The "pro" article talks a lot about the lack of representation among immigrants, but I find it false because frankly many citizens who do vote are immigrants - they just became citizens legally. If a lot of immigrants are caught in some sort of gridlock holding pattern, giving them additional rights while they wait only placates the issue somewhat, and doesn't solve the real problem, legal immigration gridlock.

[CaptainPanic]

My reply here applies only to legal foreigners:

 

All you have to do is to make a formal boundary between what the non-citizens can vote for, and what they cannot vote for.

 

In the Netherlands, non-Dutch people can vote for city councils if they lived in the country (legally) for 5 years or more, or if they are EU citizen (then they only have to register at the town hall).

The non-Dutch people can never vote for the Dutch parliament... but they have the right to vote for whatever government they have in their home country.

All EU citizens can vote for the EU parliament, regardless of where they live (not sure what happens if they leave Europe though).

 

That boundary seems to make sense to me: Nationality applies for national issues. And on the scale of a city, it matters who lives in the city.

 

Regarding illegal foreigners

The main problem is that these people exist at all. Can someone explain me how these people have kids in a school, without being registered anywhere? Literally every step they take is tricky. They're officially now allowed to be where they are. But I understand from padren's post that the status of illegal immigrants is also quite different from country to country - and within the USA also perhaps from state to state.

[padren]

I like that system Captain, though I don't know if it could work that well in the US at this time. I am also a bit curious about your experiences as a Dutch friend of mine once told me about some of Holland's immigration issues, specifically about an influx of labor (I think mostly from Morocco if I recall, perhaps also Turkey) during the 70s when it was very difficult to meet the growth demands domestically, and when that boom died down, it created a lot of tension between foreign workers who had made lives there and the traditional Dutch populations. The overall impression I got was that both groups had mutually exclusive implied expectations and both could not be realized, causing some long term issues that still persist.

 

Is that a fair characterization? I ask because I've only ever heard any details from one friend of mine, and it sounds like Holland has had to work through some complex immigration issues, and I'm always interested in hearing more from those who've "already been through it" when sorting out how to think about those issues here, even if they don't fit exactly to a tee.

[Pangloss]

Regarding illegal foreigners

The main problem is that these people exist at all. Can someone explain me how these people have kids in a school, without being registered anywhere? Literally every step they take is tricky. They're officially now allowed to be where they are. But I understand from padren's post that the status of illegal immigrants is also quite different from country to country - and within the USA also perhaps from state to state.

 

As I understand it the determination was made to allow illegally resident children to attend public schools, and that this is common all over the country. The humanitarian side of the equation here is not hard to see, I'm sure, but I agree that it's just another step in a slippery slope. Their parents can't buy a house so they can't pay property taxes that contribute to school costs, but they pay other taxes (such as sales tax) and they rent housing in the local community (and that housing pays property tax), so it's a complex issue. (See padren's argument about the legitimization of illegal aliens.)

 

My personal feeling is to structure the economy in a manner that doesn't "invite" illegal immigration -- I'd be happy to pay more for local lawn care and hair styling. But that would also have an impact on legal immigration, which is in many ways the lifeblood of the country. Which (since we already admit more legal immigration than any other country in the world) brings us back to border enforcement.

[CaptainPanic]

I like that system Captain, though I don't know if it could work that well in the US at this time. I am also a bit curious about your experiences as a Dutch friend of mine once told me about some of Holland's immigration issues, specifically about an influx of labor (I think mostly from Morocco if I recall, perhaps also Turkey) during the 70s when it was very difficult to meet the growth demands domestically, and when that boom died down, it created a lot of tension between foreign workers who had made lives there and the traditional Dutch populations. The overall impression I got was that both groups had mutually exclusive implied expectations and both could not be realized, causing some long term issues that still persist.

 

Is that a fair characterization? I ask because I've only ever heard any details from one friend of mine, and it sounds like Holland has had to work through some complex immigration issues, and I'm always interested in hearing more from those who've "already been through it" when sorting out how to think about those issues here, even if they don't fit exactly to a tee.

Your friend gave you a pretty decent summary of our immigration issues... although tension (which started around 2000) already rose during the boom, not after it. For example, I have never heard the popular anti-immigration statement that immigrants were stealing our jobs. If anything, they were accused of not working enough (right wing has two popular statements against immigrants: they either don't work or they steal our jobs - it's impossible for them to do it right). The main issue in the Netherlands however seems to be the lack of integration and adaptation.

The people we invited to work here were of such a different culture that it requires more than 1 generation to properly integrate. And everybody got a bit impatient I guess. That impatience, and the resulting tension was then fueled by some politicians who got a lot of votes simply for saying in public what quite a few were thinking: that there were too many foreigners... especially of a Muslim origin. Problems were (in my opinion) exaggerated. That all went down well in a very critical society such as the Dutch.

And that brings us to where we are today. A country with about 6% Muslim minority which is no longer integrating, but instead is alienating itself from the rest of the country because media and politicians can gain popularity by stating that there are such differences. And pointing out differences between groups of people will often increase those differences.

 

In short, I am not sure we have "already been through" it all. We're in the middle of it... and with a global economy, modern transportation and communication, I believe that we haven't seen the most of it yet.

 

So, to get this thread back on topic (before the mods split it off altogether), the immigration laws are a lot more strict now... to a point where emigration of Muslims and immigration are nearly equal (although the right wing still talk about "mass immigration", which is just pop-talk to gain votes). And we have adapted our laws so that legal immigrants can have the right to vote on local issues.

 

Illegal immigrants are not very common, and because there aren't so many, we haven't really created a lot of services aimed towards helping those.