A California court upheld a San Francisco law on Tuesday allowing certain non-citizens to vote in the city’s school board elections.
According to the San Francisco Examiner, the California Court of Appeal ruled “nothing in the state constitution prohibits cities from expanding voter eligibility in Board of Education elections to residents who are not citizens.” City voters passed Proposition N in 2016, which authorized foreign nationals who are parents or guardians to children in San Francisco’s school system to vote in local school board elections. While the measure was only temporary and set to expire in 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in October 2021 to make the change permanent.
Following last year’s historic recall election that resulted in San Francisco voters ousting three leftist school board members, the U.S. Justice Foundation and California Public Policy Foundation filed a lawsuit against the city, arguing the measure constituted a violation of the Constitution of California. The Superior Court of San Francisco ultimately agreed, ruling in July 2022 that the measure runs “contrary to the California constitution and state statutes and thus cannot stand.”
While California’s constitution states that “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote,” the California Court of Appeal used legal gymnastics to justify its decision to uphold San Francisco’s non-citizen voting law. According to the Examiner, the court’s majority claimed the state constitution “‘affirmatively’ lays out who is eligible to vote, but does not expressly prohibit cities from expanding
