Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto‑Martínez is pushing a politically explosive idea: opening up local voting to noncitizens in races for mayor, City Council and the Los Angeles Board of Education.
On Wednesday, Soto‑Martínez and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a draft measure that would ask voters this November to give the City Council authority to let noncitizens vote in local contests. The proposal aims to land on the Nov. 3 general election ballot, where Angelenos would decide whether to let the council rewrite municipal election rules. Soto‑Martínez, who is running for a second term in the June 2 primary, is tying the move to a broader push for immigrant representation at City Hall.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the measure would not itself grant noncitizens the right to vote. Instead, it would clear the way for the council to change city election law later, through a separate ordinance. Soto‑Martínez said the concept comes from his own family’s experience as immigrants who paid taxes and sent their kids to L.A. schools long before they could cast a ballot.
What the measure would do
If voters sign off on the ballot question and the council follows up with new ordinances, Los Angeles could authorize noncitizen residents to participate in specific local elections. That could include school board, mayoral and council races, depending on how the council writes the rules.
Backers argue that lawful permanent residents, DACA recipients and other noncitizen Angelenos live with the outcomes of city policies and should have a voice in choosing local leaders. Opponents are already flagging logistical and security concerns, including how to keep local voter rolls separate from state and federal lists and how to define exactly who qualifies to vote.
Legal limits and precedents
Noncitizen voting in federal races is off the table. Federal law prohibits it: 18 U.S.C. § 611 makes it a crime for an “alien” to vote in any election for federal office, with narrow exceptions and potential penalties. Cornell Law details the scope of that statute and the limits it sets.
Locally, other cities have already tested similar ground. San Francisco’s Proposition N and Oakland’s 2022 Measure S sought to extend school board voting rights to noncitizen parents, sparking lawsuits and appellate decisions that have shaped how far cities can go. Coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle and OaklandSide tracks how those efforts have been challenged and interpreted in court.
Local reaction and politics
The idea landed with a thud in some quarters and a cautious nod in others, turning into a political litmus test almost overnight.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform said the move “undermines the whole concept of citizenship.” One of Soto‑Martínez’s challengers warned the plan could effectively create a public list of noncitizen voters, potentially putting undocumented residents at risk.
Immigrant advocates and some council allies counter that the current system leaves many taxpaying residents voiceless in decisions that shape their neighborhoods. They frame the proposal as a fix for what they call “taxation without representation,” especially for families with kids in L.A. public schools.
What happens next
The motion now heads to the City Council’s rules committee, which will decide whether to move it forward. The full council would then have to vote to place the question on the Nov. 3 ballot. Only if voters approve would the council take up the detailed ordinances needed to define who can vote and in which races.
Even with a green light from voters, legal fights are likely, and any new rules could sit in court for a while before anyone casts a ballot under them. For now, the proposal drops Los Angeles straight into the national tug-of-war over who gets to participate in local democracy and how cities walk the line between inclusion and the hard edges of state and federal law. Expect council hearings, advocacy campaigns and potential lawsuits to keep the issue front and center through summer and into the fall.
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