ME city mulls suffrage for non-citizens in local elections
Denial of noncitizen vote mobilizes petition drive
Some opponents on the city's Charter Commission cite legal uncertainties.
By Tom Bell
The Portland Press Herald (ME), March 12, 2010
http://www.pressherald.com/news/deni...010-03-11.html
Portland, ME -- The city's Charter Commission voted 7-5 Thursday against a proposal to give voting rights to noncitizens, but the issue is hardly dead. A petition drive is under way.
Immediately after the vote, a group of young leaders in Portland's immigrant community and members of the League of Young Voters formed a 10-member petition committee, the first step required for taking out papers for a petition drive.
The committee must gather about 5,100 signatures to get the issue on the ballot in November.
Portland would be the first municipality in Maine to grant voting rights to resident aliens. The charter change would require noncitizens to prove they are legal residents to get their names on the city's voting rolls. They could not vote in state or federal elections.
While noncitizens cannot sign the petitions that will circulate, they will help distribute them throughout the city, said Will Everitt, director of the League of Young Voters.
There is increasing enthusiasm among immigrants for the effort to let noncitizens vote in city elections, particularly among young people, said Alfred Jacob, a Sudanese-American who is on the petition committee.
There are about 7,000 immigrants in Portland, many of whom can't vote because of language barriers and the long and cumbersome citizenship process, Jacob said. ''How can you live in a place where you have no voice?'' he said. ''You need a chance to participate.''
The Charter Commission voted after a debate about whether giving noncitizens voting rights could withstand a legal challenge. City Attorney Gary Wood told the commission that there is ambiguity in state law, and that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court would ultimately decide the issue.
For some commissioners, including Tom Valleau and Jim Cohen, uncertainty about the proposal's legality played a key role in their decision to reject it.
''I think we'd be making a misstep if we put this issue on the ballot - legally shaky as it is,'' Valleau said.
Others, including Commissioner Jim Gooch, think there is a decent chance that the court would support the change. If commissioners think it's the right thing to do, Gooch said, they should not let legal uncertainty stand in the way.
Commissioner Nathan Smith, who voted ''no,'' said it would be better if the question appeared on the ballot as the product of a petition drive, rather than through the ''top-down'' approach of the commission.
During the public hearing that preceded the commission's debate, Barbara Campbell Harvey of Portland said that immigrants who want to vote should become citizens.
''If you want to vote, put your hand over your heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance,'' she said.
Jacob, who will circulate petitions, told commissioners that the city's immigrant population is growing, and that children from immigrant families make up half of the enrollment in some Portland schools.
He said immigrants love the city and want to help shape it. Because many can't vote, he said, city officials have no reason to listen to them as constituents.
Jacob said the 12-member Charter Commission is an example of just that. ''You don't see any minorities sitting among you guys right now,'' he said.
Commissioners Cohen, Valleau, Smith, Richard Ranaghan Jr., Pamela Plumb, John Spritz and Naomi Mermin voted ''no.''
Commissioners Gooch, Ben Chipman, Anna Trevorrow, Robert O'Brien and Linda Davis voted ''yes.''
The commission plans to issue a preliminary report in May and a final set of recommendations in July. It has already decided to ask voters in November to change the city charter to establish a popularly elected mayor.
Although that was the main issue during the campaign last year to select members of the commission, it has raised little controversy or public interest since the panel began meeting.
The issue of granting voting rights to noncitizens has attracted the most public attention - and emotion. The number of immigrants attending the meetings has grown each time the commission has discussed it. On Thursday, 20 of the 26 people at the meeting were immigrants.
After the meeting, some said they were angry and felt belittled by the way some of the commissioners talked about them.
Mohammmed Dina, 24, a Somali-American who is a student at the University of Maine, said he was saddened by the vote. ''They ignored part of the community,'' he said.