New York City appears to be on the verge of the nation’s biggest expansion of voting privileges for non-citizens who are permanent residents of the United States.
While non-citizens are legally prevented from voting in federal elections, some states allow municipalities to open the door for local elections. Cities in California, Maryland and Vermont have already granted voting rights to non-citizens, but not on the scale proposed in New York.
A bill currently under consideration by the City Council would allow as many as 900,000 non-citizens to vote for mayor, city council, borough president and other local offices. The bill is scheduled for consideration Dec. 9 and is likely to pass, according to Gothamist.
Supporters of expanded voting rights had reason to celebrate over the Thanksgiving weekend after the bill’s lead sponsor, Democratic Council member Ydanis Rodriguez, struck a deal to get it on the Dec. 9 agenda.
This would not be the first time New York allows non-citizens to vote; during the last three decades of the 20th century, non-citizens were able to vote in school board elections. Ron Hayduk, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University, studied data from New York as well as other U.S. and European jurisdictions that have allowed non-citizens to vote, and found those instances have increased civic engagement.
“Research shows non-citizen voting injects issues important to immigrants into politics, makes elected officials more responsive to immigrants, leads to more diverse political leaders, and keeps government more accountable to them,” Hayduk said. “Education issues show particular gains, including funding for improvements to schools, language access, after-school programs, books and curriculum, and the like.”
If the bill passes, Mayor Bill de Blasio would have the opportunity to sign it before his term expires. He has opposed the bill in the past, citing questions of legality, but recently softened his stance. The recent City Council elections appear to have installed enough supporters of the bill to overcome a veto. If de Blasio leaves office without acting, the responsibility would fall to Mayor-elect Eric Adams, who has said he supports expanding the franchise.
Even if the bill sails through the City Council and the mayor’s office, it may still face opposition. Republican Vito Fossella, a former member of Congress and incoming Staten Island borough president, has promised legal action to prevent the bill from going into effect.
But Hayduk believes the bill passes constitutional muster.
“Numerous legal scholars conclude NYC’s law is constitutional because NY’s Constitution merely provides the floor but not the ceiling regarding who can vote, whereby charter cities like NYC can use their home rule power to enact such changes,” he said.
The number of New Yorkers who could gain voting rights would exceed the total population in as many as a half-dozen states.
According to Ballotpedia, 14 states allow municipalities to grant voting privileges to non-citizens, and 14 cities (all in California, Maryland and Vermont) have done so.
- San Francisco is by far the biggest, but only allows non-citizens to vote in school board elections.
- Eleven towns and cities in Maryland have varied rules allowing certain non-citizens to vote.
- Vermont became the latest state to grant such authority, when the Legislature overrode Gov. Phil Scott’s veto in June. Now two cities — including the capital, Montpelier — now allow non-citizens legal residents to vote.
Efforts are underway in other areas —notably Illinois, additional California cities and Portland, Maine — to give non-citizens the right to vote, according to Hayduk.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.