Posted on 06/17/2019 6:01:03 AM PDT by reaganaut1
In the 12 years since fierce backlash forced Gov. Eliot Spitzer to abandon a proposal to offer driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, New York has fashioned much of its political identity around a commitment to immigrant issues.
That resolve has become especially apparent during President Trump’s tenure, as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a new Democratic majority in the State Legislature have pardoned undocumented immigrants, granted them access to college scholarships and limited deportable offenses, in an effort to cast the state as Washington’s opposite.
But even as those other measures have sailed through the new Albany, one measure has remained stalled: the newly revived proposal to allow undocumented immigrants to drive.
Despite immigration advocates’ efforts to cast it as both an economic boon and a social justice imperative, the so-called Green Light bill has met persistent opposition from law enforcement and large swaths of the public. Republicans have bought Facebook ads denouncing the effort. Even the National Republican Congressional Committee blasted New York’s bill last week.
The opposition has taken hold in the State Senate, where lawmakers from moderate suburban districts, many of whom won by razor-thin margins last year, hold sway. Those senators have been wary this year of some of the progressive left’s marquee causes, worrying that they might alienate their constituents and possibly damage their re-election chances.
While the State Assembly, which is dominated by city legislators, passed the bill on Wednesday, the Senate had not scheduled the measure for a vote. (Several Democrats in the Assembly voted against it.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ONLY Illegal Immigrants are important to Democrats.
BINGO!! It’s ALL about Voting!!
I endorse your program of dusting off Old Sparky, in my official capacity as undocumented Lieutenant Governor of the Great State of New York. Fire it up.
“...don’t know why illegal aliens need driver’s licenses...”
In NYS it is set up so they can (or will soon be able to) register to vote via their “license”.
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