Op-Ed: The League of Women Voters Has Lost Its Way

By Steve Levy

I recently read a letter to the editor in Newsday, from Elisa Antonelli, the co-chair for the Issues and Advocacy committee of the League of Women Voters’ Huntington chapter, which requires a response. 

Ms. Antonelli was posting about the virtues of the League, which “proudly stood behind our banner proclaiming the need for change, (and) respect for our immigrant neighbors…” at a protest outside Hempstead Village Hall criticizing federal officials arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens.

If ever there was an example of a once-proud and prestigious organization falling far away from its original mission, this is it.

What in the world does the issue of illegal immigration - particularly deporting criminal aliens - have to do with the League of Women Voters, unless, of course, the League was concerned about illegal immigrants improperly casting votes in our elections?

That would be a proper issue for the League to address. 

But, no, they ignore this issue and instead morph toward the standard Democratic leftist position of opposing deportations.

This isn’t the first once-proud organization that veered from its original mission.

We saw it with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which in the 1970s helped fight the KKK, but recently was criminally indicted for actually inciting racial violence.

We see it with the NAACP, the ACLU and even the Anti-Defamation League, each of whom often associate themselves more as arms of the Democratic Party than with their original missions.

I am not saying that the League of Women Voters has gone to that extent, but it is a shame that, instead of talking about the problems with the integrity of our electoral system - especially in the wake of massive mail-in voting, lowered signature verification and ballot harvesting - the League would divert attention to the issue of the deportation of criminal aliens, which has absolutely nothing to do with its founding. 

Shame on them.

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Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of the “On the Right Side Podcast.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter  @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com