LA City Council member seeks to allow noncitizens to vote

By Chris Woodward
The Center Square

A Los Angeles City Council member has proposed allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Speaking on Friday at a Rules Committee meeting, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez of District 13 called his plan a simple issue of fairness.

“After my parents immigrated here from Mexico, they worked hard, paid taxes, raised their kids in our public schools, but for decades, they had no voice in the decisions shaping their community until they became citizens,” said Soto-Martinez.

The council member, whose district includes Hollywood, Echo Park, East Hollywood and Atwater Village, said the story is shared by hundreds of thousands of Angelenos.

“As someone who grew up in one of those families, I believe they deserve a voice in the city they helped build,” said Soto-Martinez. “My parents were lucky to benefit from the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, but since that time, the federal government has not made a substantial change or any immigration reform, and estimates are there is a million people living in this region with no pathway to citizenship.”

This is not a new or untested idea. Soto-Martinez said San Francisco and other local jurisdictions across the country have already implemented forms of noncitizen voting in local elections. Still, the council member said his proposal “takes a measured approach.”

The city and county of San Francisco allows noncitizens to vote in local school board elections. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Oakland residents in Alameda County approved a 2022 measure to allow noncitizens to vote in school board elections. Noncitizen residents in Washington, D.C., can vote in all local elections. Noncitizens also may vote in municipal elections in the Vermont cities of Montpelier, Winooski and Burlington, as well as in 16 municipalities in Maryland.

Soto-Martinez said his proposal wouldn’t take place overnight. If his plan is passed by the Los Angeles City Council and later approved by the voters this November, nothing would take effect until a future ordinance is adopted by the council and signed by the mayor.

“This gives us the time and flexibility to get it right, to build in safeguards, to protect people’s security, and to ensure any policy can withstand legal challenges,” said Soto-Martinez.

The Center Square reached out to Soto-Martinez for an interview, but his office said he was unavailable.

Not everyone is on board with his proposal.

Ira Mehlman, media director at Federation For American Immigration Reform, called it another “disturbing” effort in a city that has taken “very radical positions on illegal immigration” generally.

“The founding principle of this nation was self-determination, that we the people decide who, you know, who represents us, how our tax dollars are spent,” Mehlman told The Center Square. “This is what we fought a revolution about, and here you have a member of the Los Angeles City Council saying that anybody who happens to just show up in LA, whether they’re there legally, illegally, they have an equal say in how the public’s business is conducted in the nation’s second-largest city.”

Mehlman said allowing noncitizens to vote “devalues” any concept of what citizenship means.

When asked about San Francisco and other cities allowing noncitizens to vote, Mehlman said this is one reason people are moving out of California.

“Everything that is done in California seems to be for the benefit of people who are in the country illegally,” said Mehlman, who joined FAIR in 1986, the same year that IRCA became law. “California is not alone. New York is dealing with the same issues.”

Like the Empire State, California is facing a huge budget crisis, Mehlman said. He noted that people moving away only does more financial harm to the Golden State.

“One of the arguments that this city councilman makes is that the noncitizens are paying taxes, and they’re living there,” Mehlman said. But he noted noncitizen residents should pay taxes for local services that benefit them, despite the fact that doesn’t make them eligible to vote.

“They’re using the schools. They’re using public health. They’re being protected by police and fire and all the other services that the city provides for them, so, you know, they should not expect that they’re going to get all this for free,” said Mehlman.

Pointing to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, Mehlman said it does not say “We the taxpayers.” It says “We the people,” and that is different, he said.

“If you’re in LA, if you’re in California and you’re using the services, you should be expected to pay for them,” said Mehlman.

Voters in Santa Ana rejected a 2024 ballot measure allowing the Orange County city’s noncitizens to vote.

Noncitizens aren’t allowed to vote in state and federal elections anywhere in the U.S., including Maryland, Vermont and California, according to voter registration websites.