Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Selene Rodriguez.
In a 10-5 vote, the Los Angeles City Council voted last week “to advance a measure that would allow non-citizens to vote in citywide and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school board elections.”
Let that sink in.
In one of America’s largest cities, elected officials are seriously debating whether citizenship should still matter at the ballot box.
The proposal raises a question that should not require a debate as we head into the November midterm elections: Who should be allowed to vote in American elections?
For most Americans, the answer is straightforward: Voting is a right reserved for citizens.
Yet the Los Angeles City Council is challenging a basic principle of American self-government: Participation in American elections should be reserved for American citizens.
Citizenship is more than a legal status. It is the foundation of rights, responsibilities, and civic privileges that define membership in the American political community, including the right to vote.
That is why debates over voting are ultimately debates over citizenship.
As voting determines who will make laws and set policy, it has long been reserved for American citizens.
Supporters of the Los Angeles proposal see the issue differently.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, who introduced this piece of legislation, argued that it “does not make sense” that someone who moves to Los Angeles for a temporary job has less of a voice than a parent who has lived in the city for decades and raised children in its public schools.
That argument may sound emotionally appealing.
However, it fundamentally changes the standard for participating in elections.
The threshold requirement should remain the same: Participating in American elections should be reserved for American citizens.
The Constitution, particularly through the 14th Amendment's recognition of national citizenship, treats citizenship as carrying distinct rights and responsibilities within American civic life.
TPPF's Byron Fisher recently testified before the Texas House Committee on Elections, noting how “voting in this country is an expression of preference for how you as a citizen want to be governed and, for most citizens, it is the only opportunity they have to have some say in the direction of their city, state, and country.”
Many of the same political leaders who insist that Americans should respect the sovereignty and political processes of other nations appear less willing to defend those same principles at home. Sovereignty is ultimately the right of a people to govern themselves. If self-government is worth defending abroad, it should be worth defending at home as well.
The Los Angeles proposal is not merely a local dispute. It reflects a broader movement to reconsider whether citizenship should remain the qualification for participating in American elections.
And Los Angeles isn’t alone. That same question is now being answered very differently in the nation’s capital.
Earlier this month, a letter from Department of Homeland Security’s General Counsel James Percival directed ICE attorneys to prioritize cases in which illegal aliens are voting.
In the letter, Percival stated, “Illegal voting by aliens dilutes the votes of American citizens and undermines our democracy. It must have consequences.”
The directive was notable not because it created a new standard, but because it reaffirmed an old one. Participating in American elections is a right reserved for citizens.
When foreign citizens illegally participate in elections reserved for Americans, it undermines the principle that political power should be exercised by citizens alone.
This is why Congress has the opportunity to reinforce that principle by passing the SAVE America Act.
The SAVE America Act is designed to reinforce a principle that already exists in law: Only citizens may vote in federal elections.
The legislation would require proof of citizenship during the voter registration process, helping election officials verify eligibility before an individual is added to the voter rolls.
The stakes extend beyond Los Angeles. What begins as a local experiment seldom remains local for long. Policies that survive legal scrutiny in one jurisdiction often become the starting point for expansion into others.
The debate unfolding there should concern anyone who believes citizenship still means something.
A nation cannot simultaneously insist that citizenship matters at the border, in immigration law, and in countless civic responsibilities, while treating it as optional when determining who exercises political power. And it cannot sustain a meaningful concept of citizenship if the privileges of citizenship are gradually detached from citizenship itself.
Citizenship should remain the defining line for participation in American elections, not merely because the law says so, but because self-government depends on it.
If citizenship matters when entering and remaining in the United States, it should also matter when determining who gets to participate in its elections.
Josh Findlay serves as Director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s National Election Protection Project and hosts TPPF’s Election Protection Project Podcast.
Selene Rodriguez is a campaign director for the Secure and Sovereign Nation campaign at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.