Worcester Metropolis Council rejects petition that elected officers be U.S. residents

A petition that might have required candidates working for elected workplace in Worcester to be U.S. residents has been rejected, with metropolis councilors slamming the Republican Metropolis Committee for its “cowardice.”

The Worcester Metropolis Council unanimously voted towards the petition, titled “Fairness in Representation,” from the Worcester Republican Metropolis Committee on Tuesday.

If authorized, candidates would have been required to be U.S. residents to be eligible to carry elected workplace, starting with subsequent 12 months’s municipal election.

“Any candidate not born in or within the jurisdiction of the United States, but has become a naturalized American citizen by the time signature papers are due for that year’s election, may be eligible to hold elected office,” the petition states.

“Such candidates, however,” it provides, “will be required, under oath, to submit naturalization papers or other legal documents as proof of citizenship to the city clerk’s office and any other necessary office or department.”

Committee Chairwoman Mary Ann Carroll referred to as the proposal “not a new concept” within the metropolis, highlighting how metropolis staff are required to finish an I-9 kind, a doc that verifies employment eligibility. An analogous idea must be adopted for elected officers, she argued.

“This is not a cumbersome extra step,” Carroll stated. “This is just a simple showing of the proper identification. It only excludes people who are excluded by law anyway.

“To be a citizen of the United States,” she added, “you have the privilege to vote and you have the privilege to run for elected office. Noncitizens are excluded from those privileges.”

Although Carroll spoke positively about her petition, residents and elected officers blasted the Republican Metropolis Committee for trying to ignite worry and divide the neighborhood weeks earlier than the Nov. 5 election.

Two members of the 10-person Metropolis Council are immigrants themselves – District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj immigrated from Albania and Councilor-at-Massive Thu Nguyen from Vietnam.

“Love and unity are how we respond to exclusionary ideology,” Haxjiaj stated. “The ideas outlined … in the petition … reek of cowardice.”

Neighborhood members took exception to the Republican Metropolis Committee’s “purpose” outlined behind the petition.

“Citizens of other countries should not be setting taxation, zoning, housing, infrastructure, and educational policies on American citizens,” it states. “When opponents see the WRCC’s website on the agenda item they will likely go to the site only to see a good portion of it is in Spanish. Once submitted, local talk radio, voters, and activists can be contacted. This is a good (and FREE) way to get the WRCC name better known.”

Dialogue across the petition sparked on social media final week, with the Massachusetts Democratic Social gathering weighing in and calling on the Massachusetts GOP to reject the “harmful and divisive proposal” and to “publicly condemn” it.

As of Wednesday, the GOP had not responded to the decision on X.

“This measure, which requires naturalized citizens to provide additional documentation to prove their eligibility to run for office, echoes the harmful, exclusionary policies of the Trump era,” Democratic Social gathering Chairman Steve Kerrigan said in an X submit final week.

“It attempts to marginalize certain citizens, questioning their loyalty and fitness to serve, based solely on where they were born,” he added. “Let’s not forget that George Washington himself was not an American citizen when he was born.”