Abstract

Excerpted From: Ilya Somin, Empowering Hispanics to Vote with Their Feet, 61 Houston Law Review 777 (Symposium 2024) (117 Footnotes) (Full Document)

It is a privilege to participate as a commentator on Professor Rachel Moran's Frankel Lecture on Hispanic/Latino politics in the United States and how to empower America's largest minority group to participate in the political system more effectively. The purpose of my contribution to the symposium on her important article is to outline the significance of foot voting for America's Hispanic population--including potential additional immigrants--and to highlight ways in which we can better empower them to “vote with their feet.” In the process, I apply some of the points developed in my earlier work on foot voting to the context of Hispanics in the United States.

People vote with their feet when they make individual choices about the government policies they wish to live under, as opposed to ballot-box voting, in which each voter usually has only an infinitesimally small chance of determining electoral outcomes or otherwise affecting policy. There are three major foot-voting mechanisms: international migration, moving between jurisdictions in a federal system, and choosing between private institutions that provide services often associated with local or regional governments.

Part II of this Commentary summarizes the advantages of foot voting over conventional ballot-box voting as a mechanism of political choice. Foot voters have more meaningful opportunities to make decisions that make a difference, and better incentives to become well-informed.

Part III outlines ways in which Hispanics can, and often do, benefit from foot-voting opportunities even more than most other groups in American society. This is so for multiple reasons. Most importantly, they are a group disproportionately consisting of immigrants and children of immigrants.

For obvious reasons, immigrants benefit from opportunities to foot vote through international migration. Immigrant groups also disproportionately benefit from opportunities to vote with their feet within the United States, as they are, on average, more willing to take advantage of them than native-born Americans.

Latino foot voting is not merely a benefit for this group alone. Empowering them to “move to opportunity” also benefits other groups, including native-born Americans of all races. The liberty and prosperity of America's largest minority group is of obvious significance to the nation as a whole.

Part IV describes ways in which we can enhance foot-voting opportunities for Hispanics. For the large number who are would-be immigrants or undocumented migrants in the United States, the most obvious way is to make legal migration easier and grant legal status to those already in the United States. There is also much that can be done to expand opportunities for Hispanics to vote with their feet within the United States. This Commentary uses the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” interchangeably to denote the group in question. This is because survey data indicates that group members are divided amongst themselves about which they prefer, with a 2021 Gallup poll finding that 23% prefer “Hispanic,” 15% prefer “Latino,” and 57% express no preference. In that poll, only 4% preferred “Latinx,” a term more popular among academics. Other surveys show an even greater preference for “Hispanic” or “Latino,” and even lower support for “Latinx.” While I do not, myself, have strong opinions about which terms are preferable, I wish to use those more widely accepted by members of the group and avoid one that has so far gained little purchase outside academic and activist circles, and that many group members seem to dislike.

Whatever term we use, it is also important to remember that “Hispanic”--or “Latino”--is in some ways a socially constructed category created by federal government officials and promoted by various government policies. The term papers over the incredible internal diversity of the people swept into this category. As we shall see, that diversity is an additional reason why foot voting can be a powerful tool for expanding freedom of choice.

[. . .]

Hispanics have been among the biggest beneficiaries of foot-voting opportunities in recent American history. In the process, they have also greatly benefited the nation as a whole. But much can be done to expand foot-voting options for Hispanics, along with others. If we take these steps, there will be vast additional benefits for both immigrants and natives, and for both Hispanics and members of other groups.

Professor of Law, George Mason University.