Posted on 06/15/2004 5:29:58 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - A bill allowing an estimated 2 million illegal immigrant drivers in California to get legal driver's licenses cleared a Senate committee Tuesday, which was the bill's first hurdle in the Legislature.
The latest attempt to make illegal immigrants eligible for the licenses, the bill would require applicants who cannot prove legal residency in California to be fingerprinted, undergo background checks and get adult sponsors. Illegal immigrants would pay $146 for a license to cover extra costs of guaranteeing that licenses aren't used as a tool for terrorists to move freely in California.
Senate Transportation Committee Democrats favored the bill, while Republicans opposed the fourth attempt since 2001 by Sen. Gil Cedillo to overturn a 1994 ban on licenses for those who cannot prove they live legally in California. The bill passed 6-3.
"The challenge of leadership is to do what is right even it's not popular," Cedillo told committee members Tuesday when reminded that 70 percent of Californians opposed the Los Angeles Democrat's similar 2003 bill that was passed and signed by former Gov. Gray Davis only to be repealed last December under pressure from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Davis vetoed Cedillo's bill in 2002. In 2001, Cedillo withdrew it from the governor's desk after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks revealed that some of the terrorists had California driver's licenses. Florida lawmakers also recently abandoned efforts to pass an immigrant driver's license bill after law enforcement officials raised security concerns.
The Democrat's newest attempt must pass the full Senate and Assembly by Aug. 31 and be signed by Schwarzenegger by Sept. 30 to become law.
Schwarzenegger has already expressed reservations about the bill, saying he prefers that licenses be specially marked to indicate the holder is an illegal immigrant.
As in previous years, the hearing and the partisan committee votes revealed the popular rifts in California over illegal immigration that comes largely from Central America and Mexico. Conservatives, liberals, labor unions, religious groups, police officers and population control advocates sparred again Tuesday over rights owed a largely poor population residing in the state illegally, but working menial jobs unwanted by most citizens.
"They are embedded in the foundation of our economy," said Cedillo, who noted that 90 percent of the state's agricultural workers, 75 percent of its maids and 65 percent of its gardeners are illegal immigrants. "This is a reality we must accept."
Backers of the license law portrayed it largely as a public safety issue to test, license and insure hundreds of thousands of Californians who drive without any of the three, while opponents dubbed it a reward for people who have broken the law to live in the state. Republican activists also vowed to mount an initiative campaign to overturn the law if the Legislature passed it. Adding to the complexity, Hispanic civil rights advocates oppose the bill, saying it offers illegal immigrants no confidentiality with authorities regarding their illegal status.
"Without confidentiality, this thing will dissuade people from applying," said Francisco Estrada, lobbyist for the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Under the bill, citizens lacking a U.S. Social Security number would have to provide a passport or card issued by their consulate to apply, identifying themselves as illegal residents.
"This bill is really worse than the last one that was signed into law," said former Sen. Richard Mountjoy, R-Monrovia. He said an adult could sponsor an unlimited number of illegal residents for driver's licenses and predicted that a court challenge would throw out the extra costs required of applicants for background checks.
Mountjoy helped pass a bill in 1993 that overturned California's traditional practice - still used in 10 states - of not requiring proof of citizenship to get a drivers' license. The bill, authored by Assemblyman Alfred Alquist, D-San Jose, passed with support from Republicans and Democrats.
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On the Net:
Read SB1160 at http://www.legislature.ca.gov
This story doesn't answer the key question: Will this bill be voted on as an "urgency bill," which would prevent it from going to the ballot? If so, 2/3rds of the legislature must vote Aye. Given the demonstrated intense unpopularity of driver's licenses for illegals, there would not be the
necessary six Republican votes in the Assembly, and Arnold would be off the hook. If the legislature passes it as a normal bill, something the Dems of course can accomplish on their own with votes to spare, it would ignite another firestorm, go on the ballot (unless the "Nutty Ninth" Circuit finds a way to prevent that) and lose by a healthy margin.
The only bad thing about Arnold's very high job-approval numbers is that he might be tempted to think he can shaft the Republican -- strike that, the non-liberal -- base by signing this thing and still get away with it politically.
I see that Cedillo, the diehard racist that he is, is still pushing his driver's licenses for illegal alien lawbreakers bill. Cedillo will do anything to help his fellow Latinos, the illegal aliens. With people like Cedillo, a person's race takes priority over a person's nationality.
I can only imagine the turmoil that would take place in this state if these opinions were in the majority and our government in California simply opened up our tax coffers and our property rights to every poor person in Mexico and allowed the Mexican government to divvy up the spoils.
I would be right of Reagan in my politics, so if that is liberal by your standards, you must be some ball of fire.
Bottom line on the issue for me is that if there is this card, that it has no value as ID for anything else but the road.
As it is they can legally drive here with the license from their own country, so why the need for the new license.
The real battle is that our liberals want the SAME drivers license for illegals as the citizens and that won't do because they would use it to access the system, so my idea is:
Give them a new card they can't get benefits from and make it distinctly different from a normal license.
Make them post a bond of 10,000 to drive here with that license.
Don't allow that license to be used for employment here as a driver.
Don't make that license any form of legal document for anything but driving.
You would not be able to use the liscence for bank accounts, but may be used for getting insurance and that is it.
Maybe they should also be forced on a semi-yearly basis to show a proof of maintaining insurance while here.
The card should not prevent them in any way from being booted out if they on some other occasion are discovered here as illegals.
1. The proponents of this bill state that it's about "highway safety"... if that were the case, then why does the bill also allow California ID Cards to be issued to illegal aliens as well?? (see below text from the bill):
Existing law requires the department to require every applicant for an original driver's license or identification card to submit satisfactory proof that the applicant's presence in the United States is authorized under federal law and prohibits the department from issuing a license or card to a person who does not do so. Existing law requires the department to adopt regulations, including procedures for verifying citizenship or legal residency of applicants for driver's licenses and identification cards.
This bill would repeal those requirements.
2. They are trying to make this bill "referendum proof" by passing it as an "urgency statute". If this passes in its present form, it will take effect immediately after the Governor signs it. The earliest a referendum could reach the ballot is March 2005. By then hundreds of thousands of these illegal alien licenses will have been issued. Here is the urgency language in the bill: This act is an urgency statute necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety within the meaning of Article IV of the Constitution and shall go into immediate effect. The facts constituting the necessity are: In order to reduce the number of unlicensed drivers on our highways, who account for 20 percent of all accidents and, thereby, compromise public safety, it is necessary that this act take effect immediately.
Presently they both are sucking the life out of the public revenue stream.
The first two gone should be Cedillo and Nunez, both anchor babies.
The liberal has been deeply set here and well funded. I suspect because of the entertainment industry that there has been that long time foot hold here.
President Reagan was here representing their actors union long ago and saw also the communist threat inside it.
The way a liberal gets power is by coveting and accessing another's goods. They they use that money to grow their voting base through government/union employment and dependence programs IMO.
The way we take back California is to in small steps educate the public and generate appropriate candidates that can slowly bring the middle voter to the conservative side of the isle.
It will be a slow but worthwhile process.
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