[uupretirees] Re: The right to vote

  • From: Eric Russell <ericprussell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2021 14:57:59 +0000

Which question are you responding to?  Eric

________________________________
From: uupretirees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on 
behalf of hils. <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2021 10:10 AM
To: uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [uupretirees] Re: The right to vote

Of course not !
============================


-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Russell <ericprussell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Uupretirees Yahoogroups <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Fri, Jul 30, 2021 10:52 pm
Subject: [uupretirees] The right to vote

Taxation with representation.  Should legal residents of New York be allowed to 
vote in municipal elections before they can become citizens?  Should their 
efforts for this country count?  What defines American?  Eric

New York City’s Radical Proposal for Noncitizen Voting
The “Our City, Our Vote” bill would add almost 1 million new potential voters 
to the rolls—the largest addition of voters in this country in half a century.
By John 
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Listen to an audio version of this story at 
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Lucia Aguilar has been living in New York City since she was 3 years old. In 
her late 30s now, she works at a nonprofit in East Harlem, where, for the last 
16 years, she’s helped manage a community food bank. She has a green card at 
this point, but she still has years to wait until she can apply for citizenship.
“Growing up here, going to school, you learn about the democratic system, and I 
believe in it and that we all have a say when we vote,” Aguilar told me.
But despite being a New Yorker through and through, she simply doesn’t have the 
same say in the political direction of her city as many of her neighbors. As 
one of nearly 1 million documented noncitizens in New York City, Aguilar is not 
eligible to vote in city elections. “I wasn’t born in the United States, but, 
you know, I’m a New Yorker at heart, and I wish I could participate in these 
events.”
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A bill now before the New York City legislature is set to offer noncitizen 
residents like Aguilar a chance to participate in city politics. The bill, “Our 
City, Our Vote,” would allow noncitizens with work authorization—people with 
green cards, DACA protection, or Temporary Protected Status—to vote in all New 
York City municipal elections, giving them a voice in who gets elected to the 
City Council, as public advocate, even to the mayor’s office. If passed, it 
will bring the largest addition of eligible voters since the 26th Amendment 
lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 half a century ago. The challenge for 
advocates now is to convince lawmakers that the move is right for the city, and 
for its democracy.
Listen to an audio version of this story from Latino USA.
The United States is slogging through a contradictory era for voting rights. 
Despite a devastating pandemic, turnout in the 2020 election was the highest 
we’ve seen in more than a century. The results of that vote, however, despite 
no evidence of significant fraud, were doubted and denied, and remain subject 
to drawn-out controversy. On January 
6<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DotfPps9s8HM&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374522946043%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=AzA5i2FsTYYdPDvFkiEeC9AmTedxSH%2BCdn%2BKEXIQsRE%3D&reserved=0>,
 thousands of people, either claiming fraud or simply desperate for different 
results, stormed the Capitol building, looting offices, waving the Confederate 
flag, and crying for politicians’ heads to roll.
In the months following that deadly insurrection, revolts against the vote, and 
seemingly against democracy itself, have taken a quieter form. Republican-led 
state legislators have proposed and enacted laws to severely restrict voting 
access, in barely concealed attempts to suppress the votes of citizens of 
color. The moves limit how, where, and when people can cast a ballot. Overall, 
nearly 400 voter suppression bills have been proposed in 49 states this year, 
part of a tide of anti-voting bills that first-term Georgia Senator Rafael 
Warnock has called “Jim Crow 
2021<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.warnock.senate.gov%2Fpress-releases%2Fsenator-reverend-warnock-urges-bipartisan-support-for-swift-federal-action-to-combat-recent-onslaught-of-voter-suppression-proposals%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374522956032%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=sE4xuEKnjE1B4ZjEaTd2gHkzSoO9dM4HmXTDaucDa6M%3D&reserved=0>.”
“We may be tempted to dissect these bills, as if analyzing them piece by piece 
makes them more rational,” Warnock said in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing 
on voting rights. “But that narrow analysis only obscures the larger, 
unmistakable picture: This is a full-fledged assault on voting rights, unlike 
anything we’ve seen since the era of Jim Crow.”
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In Washington, Democrats’ efforts to push through a federal voting rights bill 
seem to have stalled, and in early July the Supreme Court gave its stamp of 
approval<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fpolitics%2Fvoting-rights-arizona-court%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374522976032%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=208tFp1tPz5iugZczI80ksQ0TgUOk9fpqLBOLoKA1m0%3D&reserved=0>
 to two of Arizona’s voter suppression measures. All of which makes New York’s 
proposed municipal voting shake-up an outlier in the voting rights landscape, 
but one that prompts some basic questions about democracy: Who are counted as 
the people when the people supposedly rule? What happens to a government of and 
for the people when millions are left out of key decisions? What about that 
rallying cry of the American Revolution, “No taxation without representation,” 
when so many in this country are taxed and have zero say in who represents them?
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ON ONE NATIVE AMERICAN RESERVATION, VACCINE HESITANCY HAS LONG HISTORICAL ROOTS
Sarah Stacke
Paul Westrick, the senior manager of democracy policy with the New York 
Immigration Coalition, one of over 60 organizational backers of the New York 
City bill, explained to me why they are pushing for the proposal. “While we 
live in a democracy, we have 1 million New Yorkers who can’t vote in their 
local elections for mayor, for City Council, or for the folks who are making 
policy and budget decisions that affect their lives on a day-to-day basis,” 
Westrick said. “So these are residents of our city who live here, work here, go 
to school here. They are raising families here. They are paying taxes here and 
they deserve to have a say in the direction of our city.”
Ydanis Rodriguez, who sponsored the most recent iteration of the Our City, Our 
Vote bill, says that if the city passes the bill, it would be “empowering most 
New Yorkers to take control of who are the leaders, and those leaders will be 
accountable.” At its most basic level, Rodriguez told me, “the consequence is 
that we’re going to be expanding voting rights.”
Noncitizen New York residents come from all over the world, with the largest 
foreign-born 
populations<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww1.nyc.gov%2Fassets%2Fimmigrants%2Fdownloads%2Fpdf%2Fmoia_annual_report_2018_final.pdf&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374522996017%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=07VA8jiAqI6sG16zYGdC5p01qo%2FVgtvBKaZZs5tt%2FoY%3D&reserved=0>
 coming from the Dominican Republic, China, and Mexico. Immigrant New Yorkers, 
both naturalized citizens and noncitizens, pay an estimated $10 
billion<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcomptroller.nyc.gov%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fdocuments%2FOur-Immigrant-Population-Helps-Power-NYC-Economy.pdf&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374522996017%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=N7N4zBEcK5Kn0Wc5%2B4e4B62JEYOOXdMdcRS78oDccrk%3D&reserved=0>
 of taxes a year. Noncitizens contribute nearly $3 billion into that total. The 
nearly 1 million documented noncitizen New Yorkers are part of the 15 or so 
million documented 
noncitizens<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pewresearch.org%2Ffact-tank%2F2020%2F08%2F20%2Fkey-findings-about-u-s-immigrants%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523006009%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=l9Y%2Bb98PaWMjDCDz7Lyc0kkYY5NLyLCUaUqlX%2BG%2BOmg%3D&reserved=0>
 in this country as a whole, not to mention the approximately 11 million 
undocumented immigrants forced to live even further in the shadows in this 
country.
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New York’s bill comes at a critical time. Especially over the past year, the 
city’s reliance on immigrant workers has been profoundly and painfully 
underscored. As the pandemic gripped New York in 2020, immigrant workers were 
critical in holding the city together—keeping New Yorkers fed, caring for the 
sick, and keeping the city itself alive. And yet they also suffered the worst 
of the pandemic. One 
study<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aamc.org%2Fnews-insights%2F54-million-people-america-face-food-insecurity-during-pandemic-it-could-have-dire-consequences-their&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523016004%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=ssblq7%2BMCEpSJabLfsZo4wSjbsX8AYWTsPXrAdphsXw%3D&reserved=0>
 found that 75 percent of New York immigrants lost their jobs in the initial 
months of the pandemic, compared to an overall high unemployment rate of over 
15 
percent<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news10.com%2Fnews%2Fnys-unemployment-rate-rebounding-to-almost-pre-pandemic-levels%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523016004%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=SVevapKxwTXLuBKfU%2Fy2os4PQ3nFZAbuNilxUvKBGR8%3D&reserved=0>
 in April of 2020. Immigrants also suffered more poverty and food 
insecurity<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aamc.org%2Fnews-insights%2F54-million-people-america-face-food-insecurity-during-pandemic-it-could-have-dire-consequences-their&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523026001%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=4H2SIj2UR849s%2Fu%2BPvkgyzDOjud%2F3thloUNq97Y%2FS50%3D&reserved=0>
 because of the pandemic. An article from the Journal of the American Medical 
Association<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjamanetwork.com%2Fjournals%2Fjamainternalmedicine%2Ffullarticle%2F2765826&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523026001%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=6k6WMnnZGEy2zcHHlLfE8dNR6gD6eINZHOcI9WEMHJI%3D&reserved=0>
 that focused on the Bronx, a heavily immigrant New York City borough, found 
the highest rates of Covid-19 diagnoses and deaths during the spring of 2020 in 
the city. The article stated, “Immigrant patients are highly susceptible to the 
combination of elevated rates of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, misinformation about 
its transmission and disease course, and hesitancy to access care.”
About half of all frontline workers in New York are immigrants. One in five of 
those frontline workers is a noncitizen. Westrick states the issue clearly: 
“This is a population of folks that we have classified as essential to our 
city. New York City cannot run without them. So how can we ask these New 
Yorkers to quite literally risk their lives, to keep us healthy and to keep 
this city running while also denying them the right to vote in how their taxes 
are spent and who represents them in government?”
Hina Naveed is a registered nurse, a recent law graduate from CUNY School of 
Law, and served as the campaign manager for Cesar Vargas, a candidate for 
Staten Island Borough president this year. (Vargas lost the Democratic primary 
in June.) Like Aguilar, she’s also a noncitizen, which has shaped her political 
commitments. “The fight for justice and dignity for undocumented immigrants has 
been something that I’ve been very passionate about for a very long time,” 
Naveed told me. “I am a DACA recipient, which means I’m undocumented. I have a 
work authorization that I have to renew every two years that allows me to work 
to pay taxes, but doesn’t give me a path to citizenship. And so what that has 
essentially boiled down to for me and millions of undocumented immigrants is 
taxation without representation.”
Our City, Our Vote would give people like Naveed and Aguilar the chance to go 
to the polls to hold accountable the politicians who make decisions over their 
lives and who spend their tax dollars. It’s also, according to supporters, a 
down payment on the basic health of the city, a reaffirmation of the idea of 
democracy.
“The more folks who are in the process participating in our democracy, the 
better it is for the entire city,” Westrick said. “This is an opportunity for 
New York City to really lead the country and lead the conversation in 
protecting and expanding voting rights.”
Granting noncitizens the right to vote may sound like a radical project, and it 
certainly attracts its critics, but it has a long history in this country, and 
isn’t so rare in other parts of the world either. A number of US cities already 
let noncitizens cast the ballot.
Long before Jamie Raskin, the Maryland representative tapped to lead former 
President Trump’s second impeachment trial, entered politics, he wrote an 
influential white paper that was passed around voting rights advocates circles. 
It was a key resource in implementing noncitizen voting rights in Takoma Park, 
Md. Noncitizens in Takoma Park have been voting in municipal elections since 
the 1990s, without an uproar or anyone’s raising an objection. In fact, 
Maryland is the state with the most cities—nine in total—that allow noncitizens 
to vote. Two cities in Vermont and San Francisco now also allow foreign 
residents to vote in some local elections.
“For most of American history, states granted voting rights at the local level 
to noncitizens,” Raskin explained to me. “Prior to the Civil War, pro-slavery 
forces tried to destroy noncitizen voting because immigrants overwhelmingly 
opposed slavery, but Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party vigorously 
defended the practice of extending suffrage rights to permanent residents who 
were on the pathway to citizenship. The Republicans made the compelling 
argument that we all benefit when everyone participates in their communities. 
That argument is still compelling today.”
One of the global experts on noncitizen voting rights, Ron Hayduk, the former 
coordinator of New York City Voter Assistance Commission and the author of 
Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States, 
explained, “Most Americans are very surprised to learn that noncitizen voting 
or immigrant voting is older than the country itself. Many of the early 
colonies allowed immigrants to vote and run for office, and they did.”
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When Congress created new territories, it used the lure of noncitizen voting to 
attract settlers. And when those territories became states, it kept that 
practice intact. In the wake of the Civil War, after the Reconstruction 
Amendments—the 13th, 14th, and 15th—abolished slavery and guaranteed equal 
protection of the laws and the right to vote, white politicians and citizens, 
particularly in the South, used poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and 
brash violence to try to scare Black people away from the voting booth. But 
even amid this backlash, the 1874 Supreme Court case Minor v. Happersett upheld 
the states’ rights to implement their own voting regulations, even if they were 
extending them to noncitizens.
But in the 20th century, as women were granted the right to vote in 1920, and 
Black Americans were finally guaranteed equal access to the franchise with the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965, noncitizens were steadily losing ground. States that 
had allowed noncitizen voting rolled back those rights, so that by 1926 no 
state allowed noncitizens to vote in statewide elections. In 1996, the 
draconian Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act made it a 
federal offense for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
MORE FROM JOHN 
WASHINGTON<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fauthors%2Fjohn-washington%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523045982%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=qVSp7whZ65z6NHAr%2BwTPxo0zU2c5mjbDDj8HAM2sK4c%3D&reserved=0>
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THE HUMAN COST OF 10 YEARS OF CONFLICT IN SYRIA
June 30, 2021
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PULLING DOWN THE WORLD’S WALLS: A CONVERSATION WITH HARSHA WALIA
April 22, 2021
<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fpolitics%2Fcameroon-asylum-deportation-immigration%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523055981%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=kIhe7ikzemmJvaPrETe4fpObi74wKckL8Ge%2B7oSqYzw%3D&reserved=0>
CAMEROONIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS SAY THEY FACE VIOLENT PERSECUTION UPON DEPORTATION
November 9, 2020
Author 
page<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fauthors%2Fjohn-washington%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523065975%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=zVVd9Nr87BKpZLqsM4zXbjIX3XKPx3MCgbFAvOtgi4s%3D&reserved=0>
Meanwhile, parts of Europe and Latin America have extended voting rights to 
noncitizens. “You can move to Ireland and in six months vote in national 
elections,” Hayduk told me. “And they’ve seen, you know, a significant turnout 
to good effect. There’s a number of studies that have shown how when immigrants 
participate, there’s increases in and improvements in education policy and 
outcomes.”
Many basic conceptions of political equality are thrown out the window when it 
comes to immigrants. You can pay taxes, serve in the military, own property, go 
to school, be a working and contributing and fully engaged member of the 
community, and yet you can be arrested by immigration authorities while picking 
your kid up from school, in many states you might not be able to legally drive, 
and in almost all cities you can’t even vote for your City Council 
representative.
“The short punch line is, you know, it’s basically about inclusion,” Hayduk 
said to me, regarding New York’s bill. “It’s about fairness.”
Another supporter of the bill is Tiffany Cabán, a former public defender who 
captured the nation’s attention as part of a new progressive approach to the 
position of district attorney when she ran for Queens DA in 2019. (She lost 
that election by fewer than a hundred votes.) I spoke with her in June, days 
before the New York City primary in which she was running for a seat on the 
City Council (she won), and asked if she thinks about how things may have 
turned out differently in her race for DA if noncitizens had been able to vote.
“I think about it all the time,” Cabán said. “Mostly I think about how we have 
systematically disenfranchised Black and brown voters through criminalization. 
That we have taken away the right to vote. And I have consistently said that if 
we re-enfranchised every person…we could literally turn every single election 
in the country, full stop.”
Nationally, the New York City bill could also set an example. As Cabán 
explained, it could be “scaled and adopted at state and federal levels.”
That’s no doubt about why the idea has many detractors on the right. Stanley 
Renshon, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, 
talked to me about why he’s wary about extending voting rights to noncitizens. 
“When people jump the line and they are given an incentive to do it and a 
reward for doing it, it undermines faith in the system as a whole. And that’s a 
very big and important issue for America as a country,” Renshon said. 
Essentially, he worried that noncitizens wouldn’t have the knowledge of their 
communities to be able to make informed decisions, and he considered that there 
are other ways besides voting in which noncitizens can be politically engaged.
It’s certainly true that adding nearly a million potential voters to a city 
with five-plus million registered voters is no small thing. It’s hard to know 
how city politics might be shaken up. Right now, the bill has received support 
from a supermajority of legislators on the City Council, which means the bill 
must come up for a vote this session. Given the at least professed support, 
advocates are hopeful it would pass. It would then be sent to the mayor for 
signing.
On a hot day this June, with the 7 train clanking overhead, street vendors 
hawking tacos, backpacks, and Tupperware sets in the background, about 100 or 
so politicians and supporters gathered in Corona Plaza, Queens, to promote the 
bill as it wends its way through the City Council. With over 1 
million<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fqns.com%2F2018%2F04%2Fqueens-is-home-to-most-naturalized-immigrant-population-moia-report%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523065975%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=P9BP7Gvusn72Fy2WbNBzb5lpB2P5iaRo7rFxOrv1k%2FM%3D&reserved=0>
 immigrants, Queens is the most diverse of New York City’s five boroughs, and 
supporters at the rally were enthusiastic about the bill’s potential to reshape 
their lives, and their city.
[Voting rights 
rally]<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F07%2Fnyc-voting-rally-otu-img.jpg&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523075972%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Slw6OacJuDEL4JmqRYzawf53kY90PhZGB6o6Y3Gv94U%3D&reserved=0>
A rally for the “Our City, Our Vote” bill in Corona Plaza, Queens, in June. 
(John Washington)
Dolma Lama, who identified herself as “a community organizer, community 
volunteer, and a community lover,” told me she was representing the New York 
City Nepali community. “This bill is very important to us because we have about 
45,000 documented people who are not eligible to vote just because they do not 
have a citizenship,” Lama said.
Catalina Cruz, a state assemblywoman who came to the United States 
undocumented, told me that this bill was personal for her: “I used to not feel 
like my voice counted. And I want my neighbors to feel respected.”
When I asked her what would change if the bill became law, she struck an 
enthusiastic tone. “We could see more Dreamers in office. We could see more 
formally undocumented people who now have the power in office. We could see 
more immigrants in office. We could see more people that are Black and brown in 
office. We could see more people who believe that all of us deserve a right to 
have our voice respected.”
MOST POPULAR
1
WELCOME TO WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK, CAPITAL OF WOKE 
BOHEMIA<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fsociety%2Fwashington-square-scene%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523075972%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=mN5csjx4N4nNooReLS1bsbXRYGDOFmYYlRmtCrf279s%3D&reserved=0>
2
THE DELTA VARIANT IS CONTAGIOUS AS HELL—AND PEOPLE ARE 
SELFISH<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fsociety%2Fcovid-delta-kids%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523085960%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Qcx5aWpmdXuWkiYqOPLEtMfMFR9quEvL5%2FfrRFoCOo0%3D&reserved=0>
3
THE END OF THE VEILED 
PROPHET<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D390697&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523085960%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=q5AC%2BZ1g4egfQrdgFzDpL5XerkubHIY9xhTBaosbKf8%3D&reserved=0>
4
HOUSE DEMOCRATS WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BOLIVIAN 
COUP<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fpolitics%2Foas-bolivia-coup-investigation%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523095959%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=%2FURnW688Gte08K5GHkt4cbjgVilFNyzAw1A7q3LZCyo%3D&reserved=0>
5
REMEMBERING BOB MOSES, 
1935–2021<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Factivism%2Fbob-moses-obituary-sncc%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523095959%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=6%2FeZtzY5YwxGOCZAf9cC7e60ni3cLuT7JEcNjC6rRPI%3D&reserved=0>
John 
Washington<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fauthors%2Fjohn-washington%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523105956%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=J74Z3FjXvvv8CHKwCx7IjLw47tWWqmkXh9JtOanD4Uk%3D&reserved=0>TWITTER<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F%40jbwashing&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523105956%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=cZcpiXAyTtpoCpQSX8WUv4bbLkZfWqhOdH9Yfc7M3cs%3D&reserved=0>John
 Washington writes about immigration and border politics, as well as criminal 
justice, photography, and literature. He is also an award-winning translator, 
having translated Óscar Martinez, Anabel Hernández, and Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, 
among others. His book, The 
Dispossessed<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.versobooks.com%2Fbooks%2F3171-the-dispossessed&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523115948%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=aqEoqJy7pzYkTh%2B2yJeYpR7a7CJML3fZQ4ET4Bfo7qE%3D&reserved=0>,
 on the global story of asylum, was published by Verso Books in 2020. Find more 
of his work at 
www.jblackburnwashington.com<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jblackburnwashington.com%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C1df5709e6ee940f1ab2f08d9542d0025%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637633374523115948%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=knKYHxai1PbouRnIlAnMnBnzQ6Lt7eSMAauq626jgS0%3D&reserved=0>.



















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