District 6 City Council Kendra Lara delivered her maiden Boston City Council speech on Wednesday about providing immigrants with legal status to vote in municipal elections.
Lara also introduced her first piece of legislation -- restoring municipal voting rights to immigrants with legal status.
"Regardless of citizenship status, all our residents deserve control over issues that affect their lives by participating in the democratic process and electing their municipal leaders," wrote Lara in her weekly newsletter roundup of council meetings. "Immigrants represent 29% of our city’s population and serve as an integral part of Boston's social, political, economic, and cultural fabric. Excluding such a significant portion of our city’s population from full political participation threatens the health of our democracy. It prevents us from building a government from the bottom, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
Considering the topic, Lara delivered the speech in Spanish first and then English.