If you didn’t vote, you’re still entitled to a voice — even if you’re a non-citizen
Everyone living in a district is represented by the representative. It doesn’t matter if they voted red, blue, Green or whatever color Gary Johnson got, and most importantly still includes non-citizens and other disenfranchized persons.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard repeated statements that protesters shouldn’t protest because the voice of the people has already been delivered. And while I — and a good number of much higher-quality journalists — question how many people actually get to have their voice delivered through the electoral college, there’s another underlying sentiment said by everyone from your angry, racist grandparent to protesters to enlightened white feminist Amy Schumer: if you didn’t vote, you gave up your voice.
There’s just one problem: that’s not true.
This isn’t my opinion either. It’s constitutional law. Listen to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the recent decision on Evenwel v. Abbott, who has much more say in the government than me or several thousand of said racist grandparents, protesters, and enlightened white feminists combined.
As the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended, representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote. Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates — children, their parents, even their grandparents, for example, have a stake in a strong public-education — and in receiving constituent services, such as help navigating public-benefits bureaucracies. By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation.
For those of you who prefer things broken down to middle school or lower vocabulary, that means that all the people living in a place get their voice taken to the government. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t vote — no matter if you are non-citizen, child, felon, or victim of good-old voter supression. Your voice still is going to be delivered by your representative per the US Supreme Court.
Why does this matter? I live in Arizona’s 9th District, meaning that the Honorable Kyrsten Sinema is the one tasked with taking my voice to the government. I also sometimes tutor refugee kids living in the Honorable Kyrsten Sinema’s district. I like these kids. They’re great and have wonderful futures ahead of them, even though they had to leave their countries of origin and go through a lengthy approval process to end up here. The Honorable Kyrsten Sinema, however, sometimes votes against them on the basis that she has to listen to “her constituency,” which apparently doesn’t include these kids and their families.
Here’s the thing: if someone lives in your district, they are part of your constituency whether they help vote for you or not. And while politicians might like to keep their jobs, they should also do their jobs and represent their populations, including non-voting segments, well.
I’m proud to live in a state that takes in a massive number of refugees. Arizona, against its national reputation of xenophobia, has become a welcoming home for persons who have been forced to flee their homelands. Arizona isn’t what the rest of the nation sees it as, but it’s time for our representatives and senators to start representing the real Arizona to the national government. In the wake of Trump’s election and the taking of Arizona’s reputation to a national level, it’s time to show the country what Arizona actually sounds like.
