NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - A group of New York Republicans filed legal action to block a new law that would allow up to 800,000 non-citizens living in New York City to vote in municipal elections.
The legislation, approved by City Council in December, became law on Sunday when newly sworn-in Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, allowed a veto deadline to pass.
The suit was filed in the Staten Island Supreme Court by the New York Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy and a group of Republican elected officials. It asks a judge to issue an injunction to prevent the city Board of Elections from implementing the law due to its unconstitutionality.
“We vowed to use every legal tool in our arsenal to block this unconstitutional and un-American law, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Langworthy said in a statement. “The law is clear and the ethics are even clearer: we shouldn’t be allowing citizens of other nations to vote in our elections, full stop.
"We are only two weeks into the Adams Administration and he is already kowtowing to the radical City Council. This lawsuit is the only thing that will stop them from their ultimate goal of eradicating all the lines between citizens and non-citizens.”
“Even radical leftist former mayor Bill de Blasio admitted its illegality,” Langworthy added.
Council Minority Leader Joe Borrelli (R-Staten Island), who signed onto the suit, said that the law clearly violates that state’s election laws.
“Anyone reading NY state election law in plain English can see that it prohibits foreign citizen voting,” Borrelli said. “The public should look for themselves at section 5-102 to fully grasp how their city government willfully violates the law without regard.”
The Democrat-controlled City Council drew sharp criticism when it approved the legislation in December.
The measure not only violates the New York Constitution, but also the wishes of the Founding Fathers, including Alexander Hamilton, himself an immigrant, editors at the National Review argued. And the editors at the Wall Street Journal wrote that the argument that residents with green cards and work authorizations, those given the right to vote in the proposal, are paying taxes without representation “isn’t persuasive.”
“Nonresidents with second homes or apartments in the city pay property taxes, and they certainly have an interest in public services like police, fire and garbage collection,” the editors wrote. “International students live in New York, and they might pay taxes of all kinds, or at least sales taxes on whatever they buy. Does that mean they should get to vote in local races? The obvious answer is no.”
Allowing noncitizens to vote is trending across the nation. Nine Maryland cities allow it, as does the San Francisco Board of Education, according to the Pew Foundation, which said Washington D.C., Illinois are considering the practice.
Others on the New York suit include Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn), Assembly members Michael Reilly (R-South Shore) and Michael Tannousis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn), and Councilmembers David Carr (R-Staten Island) Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn), Joann Ariola (R-Queens) and Vickie Paladino (R-Queens).