Will illegal aliens be voting in Los Angeles city elections by 2028?

Last week’s 10-5 vote by the LA City Council makes it possible.

The council voted to place a charter amendment before voters, giving future city leaders authority to allow non-citizens to vote in city and school board elections.

At first glance, that may not sound particularly alarming.

After all, voters are not being asked to approve non-citizen voting.

Not yet.

Instead, voters are being asked to approve a technical change to the city charter, and to trust the City Council to work out the details later.

Conveniently, the controversial part comes after the election.

The measure does not limit voting to green card holders. It does not limit voting to lawful permanent residents. It does not even specify that those eligible must be residing in the United States legally.

Those omissions matter.

If supporters wanted to limit voting to lawful permanent residents, they could have written that limitation into the charter amendment. They didn’t.

If they wanted to prohibit voting by illegal aliens, they could have written that limitation into the charter amendment. They didn’t.

Instead, LA voters are being asked to sign a blank check.

This is not an accident.

It is the entire point of the exercise.

The liberal Democrats who control LA understand that a ballot measure explicitly allowing illegal aliens to vote would face fierce opposition from voters. So instead they are asking voters for authority, not permission. The permission comes later, after the charter has already been changed.

Supporters insist critics are misrepresenting the proposal. Technically, they are correct that voters are not being asked to approve non-citizen voting today.

They are merely being asked to grant politicians the authority to decide later which non-citizens may vote.

That distinction is supposed to make everyone feel better.

It should have the opposite effect.

And who exactly is asking voters for that authority?

The author of the proposal is Councilman Hugo Soto-Martínez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, one of the most left-wing members of the City Council, and a longtime advocate of sanctuary-city policies and protections for illegal aliens.

The organizations supporting the measure include the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), one of California’s most influential immigration activist organizations and a longtime advocate for expanded rights and protections for those residing in the country illegally.

CHIRLA has spent decades lobbying for policies that blur the distinction between citizens and non-citizens.

When politicians and activist groups with a long history of championing the interests of illegal aliens ask voters for broad discretionary power, skepticism is not only justified — it is required.

It comes from a City Council dominated by liberal Democrats who have repeatedly embraced policies that place ideology ahead of common sense.

The same majority has championed sanctuary-city policies, funded legal defense programs for illegal aliens facing deportation, and increasingly treated immigration enforcement as an inconvenience rather than a legitimate function of government.

Now they want voters to trust that reasonable limits will be imposed later.

Supporters portray the proposal as a narrow effort aimed at green-card holders and DACA recipients.

The charter amendment itself says no such thing.

Even some councilmembers who opposed the measure focused less on the underlying policy than on the lack of answers. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez noted that LA does not administer its own elections and raised the question of whether the city would be forced to run an entirely separate election at taxpayer expense.

Those questions remain unanswered.

Citizenship matters.

Decisions about who governs a city should be made by citizens.

That is not what is happening here.

Instead of asking voters directly, the liberal Democrats who control the LA City Council are pursuing a two-step process. First, obtain broad authority through a vaguely worded charter amendment. Then return later and make the real decisions once the authority has already been granted.

It is an extraordinarily convenient strategy.

Not every councilmember bought into it.

The measure passed on a 10-5 vote. Voting no were Monica Rodriguez, John Lee, Bob Blumenfield, Adrin Nazarian, and Tim McOsker. Voting yes were Hugo Soto-Martínez, Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman, Ysabel Jurado, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, Katy Yaroslavsky, Imelda Padilla, Curren Price, and Traci Park.

Particularly noteworthy: Traci Park, often considered one of the council’s more moderate members, voted yes.

Even in one of the most liberal cities in America, a straightforward proposal to let illegal aliens vote would be deeply controversial.

LA voters should reject the bait-and-switch.

That is why voters are being asked to approve the mechanism first and learn the details later.

If the liberal Democrats who run this city want illegal aliens voting in local elections, they should have the courage to say so before the election — not after it.

Until then, the answer should be no.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.