The Burlington City Council on Monday night approved initiatives supporting non-citizens’ rights to participate in local elections and serve on city boards.
After more than a dozen people, including many refugees, voiced support for the proposals, the council took the first steps in what would be a lengthy, difficult process to bestow local voting rights on people who have not secured American citizenship.
By an 11-2 vote, councilors placed on the March ballot a non-binding referendum that would urge state lawmakers to change the Vermont constitution and give non-citizens the right to vote in municipal and school elections, with councilors Dave Hartnett (D-Ward 4) and Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) opposed.
And in a unanimous vote, councilors ordered the charter change committee to draft a proposed ordinance for the March ballot that would allow non-citizens to serve on city boards and work as department heads.
Even if city voters approve the measures, they would face a lengthy journey before being implemented. The legislature would have to approve both them, and the constitutional amendment would also require a majority vote from all Vermonters. The city has launched similar campaigns at least twice in the past decade, but they foundered well before they could get to state lawmakers.
Speakers urged the council to try again.
Jeetan Khadka, a refugee from Nepal who has been in Burlington for six years, mentioned that the city’s website features a welcome message from Mayor Miro Weinberger touting Burlington as “vibrant,” and “diverse.”
“It’s about building a city that stands up for its values,” Khadka said. “Burlington will be a better place to work, live, and raise a family if all residents are involved in the voting process.”
Burlington High School teacher Erika Lowe, the daughter of a Chinese refugee, said she teaches students in her school —14 percent of whom are learning English as a second language — to value their civic responsibilities.
“We spend a lot of time encouraging our students to value what’s happening in our community and to pay attention to the news,” Lowe said. “Essentially, we’re preparing out students to be a part of the community when they won’t have a vote in that community. Hearing that voice, it’s important.”
While the measures might face long odds in the legislature, Councilor Rachel Siegel (P-Ward) noted that one year after Burlington voters passed a non-binding referendum urging lawmakers to decriminalize marijuana, legislators made that historic step.
“The legislature really does look to us in Burlington as leaders for change,” Siegel said. “I think change is coming.”
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Then what is the purpose of becoming a “citizen”?
The power to vote is the most powerful and sacred right an American “Citizen” has. That is the purpose of citizenship, else there is no law.
Right now, non-citizens can be elected to the steering committees of their Neighborhood Planning Assemblies, where all residents can propose and vote on resolutions to send to City Council. Most elected officials get started on a path to public service by participating in NPA.
Looks to me as if the majority of the city council has turned from progressive to communist….. anybody who would vote yet for this needs to be sent out of the country….. No country would let a non citizen vote . I knew that Burlington was a very progressive city but this could be the straw that breaks the camels back. most people i know are shaking they are so pissed. And I for one must have missed the fact that this was going to be on the agenda for the evening……. how many were there to speak against it? Talk about Shams and scams , this one is by the city govt. Thank you Kurt and Dave for standing tall on this issue and voting against it……. Seems ward four and most of the time seven stands with us. what happened to our neighboring council people from ward seven?
I would find this humorous if I hadn’t recently had to renew my drivers license. I needed a passport, a W2 with physical address and SS number, plus 2 pieces of mail with my physical address. I’m convinced that I could have gotten a driver’s license quicker if I had been an illegal immigrant from Liberia with Ebola.
Could you even imagine going to another country and demanding permission to vote? It’s utterly ridiculous, this whole scenario. What on earth do these liberals think is the benefit of this? Who has this much time on their hands to devote to this singularly obscure issue at the expense of the tax-paying citizen?
This is one of the stupidest pieces of council activity I’ve heard of during my five years here. Even more foolish that the smoking in the Marketplace ordinance. Don’t you people look out the window up and down Church Street or spend time walking your districts and talking to the people who live there? There are so many more pressing and critical issues the council should be concentrating on, not some foolish referendum that doesn’t have a chance in h*** of becoming law.
Wait what?? Am i reading an article from the Onion?
May I recommend a recall petition of ALL city council members for failure to protect the community and its interest as a whole?
How we repeat history. This is how “Tammany Hall” started and the “Political Machines”.
There was a reason why our state founders put that into our state constitution.
“”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
Exactly – what, then, is the purpose of citizenship? Burlington is becoming more and more of an “island” in the State with all it’s “progressive” whackiness. This will never stand muster with the Legislature and, certainly, with the State’s voting population as a whole. This concept and vote is just unbelievable.