These opinions on Advisory Referenda Questions are provided by Tom Moore, a whom I first met when we both ran for Council years ago. Even though we don’t always agree, he’s informed, thoughtful, and may help you with your ballot choices. He served two terms on the Rockville City Council from 2011 to 2015, then served as counsel and chief of staff to Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the Federal Election Commmission. In June, he joined the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow on its Democracy team. He has lived in Rockville since 1997.

I care quite a bit about one of the advisory referenda questions on Rockville’s ballot this year, and wanted to let you know that I’m voting YES on whether to permit noncitizens to vote, and I ask that you consider doing so as well.

I’ve written about my picks for Mayor (Mark Pierzchala) and Council (Fulton, Jackson, Neal Powell, Shaw, Valeri, Van Grack).

And I have thoughts about the other three ballot questions, which I’ll dispense quickly: 

• Lower the voting age to 16: I’m voting YES; it has been shown to help build better lifetime voting behavior. 
• Set term limits: I’m voting NO. Term limits are a bad idea in general, and I’ve fought hard against them before. I’ve learned that they almost always pass when put on the ballot, so I’m a little resigned to this one. 
• Create representative districts: I’m voting YES. They’re more fair than at-large districts.

Now, to the one I care quite a bit about: whether to permit noncitizens to vote. I think this is a misnomer – it’s not about allowing “noncitizens” to vote, it’s about allowing Rockville citizens who are not U.S. citizens to vote in Rockville’s elections.

I could have pushed for this when I was on the Council, but I made a political calculation and chose against doing so. It is my single greatest regret from my four years on the Council. I testified before the Mayor and Council on this earlier this year. Here’s what I said about it then:

—–

The Declaration of Independence got it right: governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But the government of Rockville does not, at the moment, derive its just powers from the consent of all its governed: roughly ten thousand of Rockville’s 67,000 citizens are governed by the City without their consent.

These Rockville citizens are policed by the City. They are subject to City planning policies and ordinances. The City provides their water and sewer service, their parks, their recreation programs, and their trash pickups. The City paves their streets and plows the snow from them. The City takes their tax money.

These Rockville citizens have exactly the same relationship to their City government as every other Rockville citizen except for one thing: because they are not citizens of the United States, they cannot vote in City elections.

This was not always the case. At least 22 states and territories allowed non-U.S.-citizen voting in the 19th century; it was undone by ugly anti-immigrant bigotry in the wake of World War One.

I am recommending to the Mayor and Council that it amend the Rockville City Charter to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in Rockville elections, effective for the 2027 elections. That way, the Mayor and Council elected this fall will have plenty of time to consider, pass, and publicize an implementing ordinance that will handle the details.