An area Republican chief says a progressive Boston metropolis councilor reneged on her promise to permit a panel of opponents to testify at an upcoming listening to weighing voting rights for immigrants with “legal status” however with out full citizenship.
Kendra Lara, town councilor pushing for the coverage change, stated that’s not the case — her dedication, she stated, was to permit time for the opponent to talk throughout public testimony within the first hour of a Tuesday afternoon Council listening to.
The matter stems from an trade on WBZ NewsRadio’s “Nightside with Dan Rea,” the place Lara, a progressive Democrat, was a visitor final Thursday. Lou Murray, who calls himself the chairman of Ward 20 Republican Committee of West Roxbury, known as into this system to ask whether or not Lara would “allow someone who’s in opposition to put a panel together and testify” towards her proposed house rule petition.
“What happens, people that don’t know, politicians in Massachusetts hold a hearing,” Murray stated on the radio phase. “They stack the thing for hours and hours and hours — it’s people that are in favor of their proposal.”
Murray advised the Herald that he had put collectively a panel of consultants who have been prepared to testify in opposition, together with two “citizens of Boston” and an legal professional “specializing in voting rights,” however was advised by a City Council staffer Monday that he was as an alternative being signed as much as converse throughout public testimony.
His three details of rivalry are that such a change can be “unconstitutional,” dilute the voting rights of minorities, and additional erode belief in native elections, he stated, pointing to the low voter turnout seen final month. The turnout, in response to town’s Election Department, was 18.9%.
Lara says denying immigrants with authorized standing the correct to vote is a “violation of one of our foundational American principles,” telling the Herald she had by no means dedicated to a separate panel for opposition on her radio look.
“We agreed to give him space to give public testimony within the first hour as he requested,” Lara stated Monday. “Public testimony is always open to anyone and the City Council staff has reached out to him today to confirm.”
Similarly, on the radio phase, Lara stated, “If you’re requesting in the first hour, what I can make a commitment to do is hear public testimony before we start with the panels, and I’m more than happy to do that.”
Allowing public testimony early in a Council listening to is “done often,” Lara stated, in response as to if an exception was made based mostly on Murray’s request.
Lara’s proposed house rule petition, put ahead as a listening to order at a Council assembly final month, drew help from a number of of her colleagues, however was met with authorized issues from Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty.
Flaherty cautioned towards the “serious ramifications” that might come up by extending voting rights to non-citizens, who might “seriously jeopardize their opportunity to become a legal citizen” by mistakenly voting in state or federal elections. The proposed change would solely apply to metropolis elections.
Lara’s petition, nonetheless, factors to related motion taken by 15 different municipalities throughout the nation as of January 2022, and makes the case for extending voting rights to a gaggle of non-citizens that contributes closely to town economic system, by paying on common $2.3 billion in taxes yearly and holding roughly $6 billion in “collective spending power.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”