Imagine a city where the deciding votes in an election are cast by law breakers? That is what Santa Ana may do. The November ballot has a measure to allow lawbreakers to vote for school board, special districts and city council. Honest citizens could have their votes nullified by those who break the law.
“A lawsuit was filed this morning in the Superior Court of Orange County against the Santa Ana City Council seeking a Court Order to remove biased and illegal language from a November ballot measure that if approved, would allow for noncitizen voting in city elections. The lawsuit alleges that wording in the Ballot Measure characterizing noncitizens as “including those who are taxpayers and parents” unlawfully violates the California Elections Code by creating a prejudice on the ballot to encourage voters to vote for the measure. A copy of the lawsuit as filed is available for download here: https://usjf.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Petition-for-Writ-of-Mandate-1.pdf.”
Will they have to prove they pay taxes? No. Does it matter that they have children? No. What does matter is that under Federal law that are to be deported. Instead, Santa Ana could have them running the town.
Santa Ana City Council Sued for Effort to Bias Ballot to Approve Noncitizen Voting
James Lacy, 5/24/24 www.capoliticalnewsandviews.com
A lawsuit was filed this morning in the Superior Court of Orange County against the Santa Ana City Council seeking a Court Order to remove biased and illegal language from a November ballot measure that if approved, would allow for noncitizen voting in city elections. The lawsuit alleges that wording in the Ballot Measure characterizing noncitizens as “including those who are taxpayers and parents” unlawfully violates the California Elections Code by creating a prejudice on the ballot to encourage voters to vote for the measure. A copy of the lawsuit as filed is available for download here: https://usjf.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Petition-for-Writ-of-Mandate-1.pdf. An image of the ballot measure with the biased wording highlighted in yellow is at the end of this release.
The lead Plaintiff in the lawsuit, James V. Lacy, said “it is clear that the Santa Ana City Council is taking sides and basically ‘rigging’ the ballot in the up-coming election, by manipulating the ballot language.” Lacy added, “ballot measure wording must be fair and neutral, as it is often the only information a voter has to decide on how to vote. But when government tries to ‘stack the deck’ in favor of one side or the other, it is not only unfair, but illegal, so we are asking a Judge to remove the biased language and ensure a fair election.” Lacy is joined in the litigation by the United States Justice Foundation, which he heads, the California Public Policy Foundation, and a Santa Ana resident.
Lacy’s lawsuit does not seek to pull the Measure from the ballot, but instead simply to remove the biased language presented to voters. Noncitizen voting is not allowed in Federal elections, but some local jurisdictions have been attempting to introduce it in their elections in California. Lacy is an opponent of noncitizen voting, and has previously litigated against it in San Francisco and Oakland, winning a case against the San Francisco Unified School District, which was, however, overturned on appeal, in the state court system. Lacy has stated future litigations against efforts to establish noncitizen voting in California will be filed in Federal Courts on Constitutional grounds, “where we think we can get a better result.”
Majority members of the Santa Ana City Council have been flirting with implementing noncitizen voting for the last few years. Councilmember David Peñaloza told LAist: “It would be a legal nightmare for the city,” “It would definitely be challenged.”
Yesterday more than 50 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted with Republicans to repeal noncitizen voting in the District of Columbia.
The legal filing was prepared by attorney Chad Morgan. Last year, Lacy and USJF, a conservative public interest legal foundation, was successful in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in Federal Court in Orange County against the State Department for disclosure of otherwise secret communications between Hunter Biden and then Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding Ukraine. USJF subsequently shared the information with the House Oversight Committee. That case was decided by Federal Judge David Carter, in Lacy v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. SA CV 22-1065- DOC, 2023 WL 4317659 (C.D. Cal. May 3, 2023), and USJF was awarded over $81,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Rome brought in outsiders to fill the ranks of its army. We are going to do them one better. We are going to bring in outsiders to run our governments and make laws.