Yesterday, Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill from his own party that would have required/allowed non-citizens to serve on juries in that state.
Readers of this website are well aware that while I’m not a registered Democrat, of late I find myself agreeing with the Donkey far more often than with the Elephant, as the Republican Party drifts ever rightward.
So let this be an opportunity for me to re-assert my Independent credentials and to indulge in a little Liberal bashing. After all, in this case Conservatives don’t even have to twist what Liberals say or do in order to mock them; their own words and actions suffice.
Not that folks like Rush Limbaugh won’t lie about the bill Gov. Brown vetoed. They’ll probably claim it would have opened the jury pool to illegal immigrants.
Actually the dumb asses/evil bastards (choose one) at FoxNews already misreported that.
Of course the bill would have done no such thing. Rather, it would have drafted permanent, legal U.S. residents living in California into that state’s jury pool.
Though well meaning, this bill was, in my humble opinion, wrongheaded on several levels.
Proponents stood on nice ideals like inclusiveness, noting that permanent, resident aliens are part of our communities (to the extent that “communities” even exist in modern America). However, such arguments misguidedly conflate “communities” with the body politic. But of course they’re hardly the same thing.
When you move next door, I might bring you a freshly baked pie as a show of neighborliness. That doesn’t mean you instantly qualify to vote in the next election.
If some motivations for the bill were well meaning but misguided, others revealed confusion about how juries work and are composed.
For example, some proponents claimed that if a resident alien stands accused of a crime in court, his or her “peers” should not be excluded from the jury pool. But “peers” doesn’t mean people like you. It actually means your fellow citizens!
Finally, some of the bill’s advocates claimed that since non-citizen residents reap the benefits of American society, they should also shoulder the responsibilities. For example, they have access to schools and hospitals, and so t
hey rightly pay taxes to support those institutions. Likewise, the thinking went, they have access to the legal system, and so should have to serve on juries just like citizens do.
Of course legal residents should contribute to society. But their privileges as non-citizens are limited, so their mandated contributions should be as well. There needs to be a balance.
Beyond that, however, comparing schools and hospitals to courts is awry on at least two levels. First, the explicit purpose of schools and hospitals is to improve people’s lives. Courts, on the other hand, are designed to try, convict, and punish those who transgress society’s laws. It’s hardly the same thing.
Furthermore, the entire premise of making alien residents carry their weight by serving on juries speaks to the worst interpretation of jury duty, which views it as an onerous “burden.”
Yes, of course most people see jury duty as an unwanted chore complicating their day to day lives. But in a political sense, it’s much, much more than that. Indeed, serving on a jury encapsulates the very essence of participatory democracy.
And that brings us to the fundamental question, which the failed California bill ran roughshod over:
What does citizenship actually mean?
At its most basic level, citizenship is a privileged political status.
Many Liberals are rankled by the word “privilege.” And rightly so, I think. But remember, in a participatory, democratic republic such as the United States, citizenship is a combination of obligations and privileges.
In the United States, the privileges of citizenship include the right to vote, to run for office, to apply for jobs that are open only to citizens, and the ultimate right of citizenship: it cannot be taken from you; citizenship is yours for as long as you want it.
In return, however, there is one obligation that is exclusive of citizens: they serve on juries.
Citizens compose the body politic. And whenever anyone is accused of defiling the body politic, it is the task of citizens to decide the truth.
Now before you start thinking this is my jingoistic side coming out, let me be clear. I’m very open to conversations about revising our qualifications for citizenship. Perhaps simply being born here isn’t the best criterion. And maybe the immigrant’s path to citizenship should be changed. Furthermore, I’m also very open to conversations about dispensing with citizenship altogether. I think a good case can me made that it’s an antiquated concept and we should strive for a more egalitarian existence.
Fine. Let’s have those conversations.
But for now, citizenship remains the central tenet of American governance. And so long as that’s the case, citizenship should have meaning and value.
To that end, I personally cannot abide the notion that someone who isn’t allowed to cast 1/125,000,000 of the votes for president, should be allowed to cast 1/12 of the votes for, say, whether someone will spend the rest of their life in prison.
If citizenship is to mean anything at all, particularly in a democratic republic, then it must be accompanied by rights and obligations.
Jury duty, perhaps more than anything else, and in the most direct sense imaginable, is both of those things.
And I’ll try to remember that when I report to the Baltimore City Courthouse on October 30th at 8:00 AM.
Sigh.
Sincerely,
Juror no. 2751657