A nativist reaction in the 1920s turned that around, but things can be set right now.
Today, the daily functions of citizens and noncitizens are indistinguishable: Legal immigrants are taking part in Portland's economy, expanding its civic and cultural affairs, complying with requirements to pay taxes and fighting in the U.S. armed services to protect America's core values.
It is time for Portland to give its legal residents a voice at the local level. ... At the municipal level, all of us face similar issues: How are our local tax dollars being spent? Are our roads plowed? Is our garbage picked up? How good are our public schools? Our community has much to gain by letting all legal residents in Portland vote on these quality-of-life issues.
Opponents have chosen to sanctify citizenship to deny this right.
They reflect an ongoing argument in America about citizen and noncitizen voting rights. The first three words of the Constitution are "We the people," not "we the citizens."
Similar to the hostile voices aimed at immigrants of Muslim faith, University of Southern Maine Professor Mark Lapping has detailed how, a century ago, native Portland's hostile voices took aim at Catholic -- mostly Irish, French Canadian, Italian and Polish -- immigrants, creating widespread voter anxieties and fears. Portland's 7,000-strong Ku Klux Klan rally in the 1920s, successfully excluding immigrant voting, is little different from the hostility of Glenn Beck toward President Obama's race, faith and citizenship.
So why support giving legal immigrants local voting rights when you are unemployed and told that immigrants are displacing you? When others say that they do not legally share your faith or democratic values? Certainly, the federal government's inept failure for comprehensive immigration reform has not helped.
The voting rights ballot initiative represents
a more positive back-to-the-future approach toward diversity and immigration. It is nothing new, according to Portland historian Allan Levinsky, helps reverse the KKK anti-immigrant voting "reforms," is good for business and helps secure benefits for senior citizens.
http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/letting-legal-immigrants-vote-has-long-history-in-this-country_2010-09-17.html
It is an interesting history that is not covered much these days.
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