Derision, Distress Greet Spitzer Plan on Licenses

ALBANY — The images and commentary aren’t subtle: Osama bin Laden hanging out in a New York City taxi driver’s seat, a blog headlined “Moron Spitzer Forges Ahead with Licenses for Illegals.”Governor Spitzer’s plan to make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses has been roundly assailed. “Crazy,” said one county clerk. A threat to national security, Rep. Randy Kuhl, a republican, said. A Poughkeepsie Journal editorial took a more measured approach, but still noted “taxpayers have a right to be both perplexed and outraged” over Mr. Spitzer’s plan.In the Capitol, where two Roosevelts began to set courses that would guide America’s century, the political discourse has been more like talk radio. The Assembly minority leader, James Tedisco, paints a picture of a giddy Mr. bin Laden uncorking bubbly in a cave over Mr. Spitzer’s idea.It all goes back to a July 2006 appeals court decision that provided the state greater latitude in issuing driver’s licenses. Then, the Republican Pataki administration wanted immigrants to prove they were in America legally before getting a driver’s license.But as a candidate for governor, Democrat Spitzer promised to change that. Earlier this year, as the Republican-led Senate blocked his agenda, he said he could bypass the legislature and govern the state through the agencies he controls.Mr. Spitzer dismissed some extreme opposition to his plan this week, saying the “politics of fear and selfishness has replaced the politics of common sense and responsibility.”“We are witnessing knee-jerk reactions to sound policies that have no business being politicized or polluted by fear-mongering rhetoric,” Mr. Spitzer said.He argues his plan requiring a valid passport to get a driver’s license, with additional anti-fraud measures, will bring “people out of the shadows” when it goes into effect in December. It will make streets safer, lower auto insurance costs, give immigrants a better shot at the American dream, and document hundreds of thousands of immigrants. He says the system would aid anti-terrorism efforts.On Thursday, a majority of the state County Clerks Association opposed the plan and several Republican clerks who have a role in carrying it out threatened to ignore it.The Senate’s Republican majority promised to try to undo Mr. Spitzer’s decree in a special session October 22, but the Assembly’s Democratic leaders are in Mr. Spitzer’s corner. Similar policies have been adopted in Utah, New Mexico, and other states.This weekend, the state’s Conservative Party will air cable TV ads titled “Border Line Insanity” in New York City, Albany, Long Island, and Westchester.“Along the Mexican border, we lock up illegal immigrants. In New York, Governor Spitzer wants to give them driver’s licenses,” the ad states.The Conservative Party chairman, Michael Long, said Mr. Spitzer may be playing to more liberal parts of the Democratic party as his poll numbers drop in the wake of a scandal that’s grounded Albany since July.That’s when the Senate Republican leader, Joseph Bruno, accused Mr. Spitzer’s aides of using state police to track his travels with state aircraft on days he mixed state business with political fundraisers. A report by the Albany County district attorney last month found no wrongdoing, not even a plot, but the state Public Integrity Commission continues to investigate.“I think he’s trying to move forward on an agenda, which he needs to do to sort of set things in motion again,” the director of the Marist College poll, Lee Miringoff, said.The license issue is getting the most attention in New York City, Westchester, and in some upstate cities with long simmering illegal immigration tension. But the loudest fight may be on Long Island, where the population of illegal immigrants and Republican senators is high and where Executive Steve Levy of Suffolk County, a Democrat, opposes Mr. Spitzer’s plan.“The opposition has a much easier sound bite than do the proponents because all the opposition has to do is phrase it in terms of illegal aliens, national security and September 11,” a spokesman for the Siena College poll, Steven Greenberg, said. “The proponents have to make a case for it if they want the public with them. They have to explain why this makes sense and the governor can’t do it by attacking the opposition.”And yet, in Rochester two weeks ago, Mr. Spitzer lit into critics as “legally wrong, morally wrong,” including Mayor Bloomberg, who initially questioned the plan. Mr. Bloomberg has since said he won’t oppose Mr. Spitzer but will try to work out the concerns he has with the governor on the plan.

Derision, Distress Greet Spitzer Plan on Licenses

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