Citizenship acts and immigrant voting rights movements in the US

Abstract

What happens to notions of national belonging in the US when non-citizen immigrants claim the right to vote at the local level for school boards and city councils? Is this a fundamental challenge to US citizenship norms, or an extension of the force of liberal discipline onto new citizen-subjects-in-formation? While academic literature has focused on historical, legal and normative ethical arguments about non-citizen voting, this article focuses on the vernaculars of citizenship discourses advocates and opponents invoke in order to win over local and state officials to their cause and how they both integrate and challenge official responses to their claims. Such attention to particularities is necessary to appreciate the ways in which citizenship practice is contingent on local political culture and history but also potentially transformative of larger institutions and discussions over national membership. Advocates put into practice arguments from the academic literature and borrowed through trans-local exchanges of information amongst advocates, tailored to suit local political culture and traditions. They simultaneously invoke and undermine notions of scales and levels of citizenship that would disaggregate local discourse from national politics and policies. Attention to the particular dynamics and challenges these actors face in their political work reveals both the utility and limitations of political theory for understanding the issue of non-citizen voting in the US as a particular example of citizenship as practice.

Qu'arrive-t-il aux notions d'appartenance nationale aux États-Unis quand des immigrés non-citoyens réclament le droit de vote au niveau local dans les écoles et les conseils municipaux? S'agit-il d'un défi fondamental aux normes de la citoyenneté étatsunienne, ou d'une extension de la force de discipline libérale sur de nouveaux citoyens en formation? Alors que la littérature académique s'est concentrée sur les arguments éthiques normatifs, légaux ou historiques quant au vote des non-citoyens, cet article se concentre sur les discours vernaculaires de citoyenneté invoqués par les avocats et les opposants à ce droit afin de convaincre les officiels locaux et de l'état, et sur la manière dont ils intègrent et remettent en cause les réactions officielles à leurs revendications. Une telle attention aux spécificités est nécessaire afin de saisir à quel point d'une part la pratique de la citoyenneté dépend de l'histoire et de la culture politique locales, et d'autre part peut potentiellement transformer les discussions et institutions de niveau supérieur quant à l'appartenance nationale. Les supporters de ce droit de vote ont mis en pratique des arguments issus de la littérature académique ou empruntés à des échanges trans-locaux d'informations, et remaniés pour s'inscrire dans les traditions et la culture politiques locales. Ils ont dans le même mouvement invoqué et remis en cause les notions d'échelles et de niveaux de citoyenneté qui distingueraient clairement discours local et politiques nationales. L'attention portée aux dynamiques et défis spécifiques auxquels sont confrontés ces acteurs dans leur travail politique permet de révéler tant l'utilité que les limites de la théorie politique pour comprendre la question du vote des non-citoyens aux États-Unis, comme exemple spécifique de la citoyenneté en pratique.

Keywords:

• US
• immigration
• voting
• democracy

Keywords:

• États-Unis
• immigration
• vote
• démocratie

Notes

1. Organizers recruited me to attend this meeting as a parent in a local bilingual school with a large immigrant parent population and I have been cited primarily as an ‘activist’ in this movement (Kini 2005, Hayduk 2006). However, my colleagues in the Cambridge Immigrant Voting Rights campaign were also supportive of my research and scholarly interest in their work. I owe these committed advocates for any positive contributions this article may have to offer: Jean Jeune, Marie Elena Letona, Natalie Smith, Germaine Valentine, and Marla Erlien. Any errors of analysis or omissions are the sole responsibility of the author.

2. Hayduk cites California Senator Diane Feinstein in 2004 as also opposing non-citizen voting because it ‘dilutes’ citizenship's ‘promise’ (2006, p. 126).

3. In this designation, Cambridge officials referenced the category of ‘declarant’, a group of persons enfranchised by many states in the past (Rosberg 1977). This particular effort to build a broader base of support without further marginalizing any official category of immigrants led to future troubles at the Statehouse. Already eager to find reasons to neutralize Cambridge's petition without having to vote on it directly, state legislators criticized the language as convoluted and inelegant, as well as unenforceable. Frustrated as advocates were by state officials' response to their earlier efforts at compromise with local electeds, this seemed a good example of the colloquial American expression that there are two productive processes one should not like to see: the making of sausages and the writing of laws.

4. See also Song (2009), who also cites Shklar, for a more extended discussion of this issue and the questions non-citizen voting raises for democratic ethics and political theory.

5. Brozovich notes that in the 2000 national elections, only 51.2% of citizens voted, a voter participation level reflecting a 25% decline since the 1960s (Brozovich 2002). Chung points out that low voter participation is also acute among Asian and Latino voters (Chung 1996). Depending on how you calculate Voting Eligible Populations versus Voting Age Populations, you get a different voting rate: e.g. for 2004 presidential elections VEP rates were above 60% (McDonald 2004).

6. 558 US 080-205 (2010).

7. Including but not limited to Amherst, MA, Brookline, MA, Cambridge, MA, Chelsea, MA, Hartford, CN, Minneapolis, MN, Newton, MA, New York, NY, Portland, ME, San Bernadino, CA, San Francisco, CA.

8. Interview with Jean Jeune, Cambridge, MA.

9. Most local activists had read themselves, or heard summarized, Jamin Raskin's law review article (1993) on the measure he sponsored as a city councilor in Takoma Park, Maryland – still the only contemporary US town with institutionalized non-citizen voting at the local level. Cambridge immigrant voting advocates had been passing photocopies of this article amongst themselves since the mid-1990s.