New York Governor Spitzer Dropping Illegal Immigrants Drivers License Plan
You could call it an idea whose time has not quite come — and, given opinion polls, is unlikely to come.
But what you can now call the controversial plan by New York Governor Elliot Spitzer to grant drivers licenses to illegal aliens is this:
Gov. Eliot Spitzer is abandoning his plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, saying that opposition is just too overwhelming to move forward with such a policy.
The governor, who is to announce the move formally on Wednesday, said in an interview Tuesday night that he did not reach the decision easily.
“You have perhaps seen me struggle with it because I thought we had a principled decision, and it’s not necessarily easy to back away from trying to move a debate forward,†he said.
But he came to believe the proposal would ultimately be blocked, he said, either by legal challenges, a vote by the Legislature to deny financing for the Department of Motor Vehicles or a refusal by upstate county clerks to carry it out.
“I am not willing to fight to the bitter end on something that will not ultimately be implemented,†the governor said, “and we also have an enormous agenda on other issues of great importance to New York State that was being stymied by the constant and almost singular focus on this issue.â€
Spitzer was in a lose-lose situation. If he stuck with it, he’d be denounced by one side. If he scuttled the plan, he’d be denounced by the other.
Even worse: if the Democratic campaign of New York Senator Hillary Clinton unravels and she fails to get the nomination, pundits are likely to the point to her inability to give a solid answer to questions about this proposal as the moment when a seemingly-seamless campaign showed its seams…and fell apart.
Additionally, in the polls and among top New York State politicos the proposal had become about as popular as Michael Richards performing his comedy act at a NAACP convention. Newsday notes:
Democrats and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had pressured the governor to drop the proposal, which garnered the support of only one-third of New Yorkers, according to polls.
“The heat was rising on Eliot, and he reacted,” said one Spitzer ally, among a handful of Democrats the governor reached out to Tuesday night.
Spitzer is expected to tell the delegation that “immigration is a federal, not a state issue,” said one congressional source familiar with the governor’s thinking.
That explanation is virtually identical to Clinton’s statements on the issue — and gives the Democratic front-runner a ready-made answer when the topic is inevitably raised at tomorrow’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas.
But, given the erosion of Clinton’s aura of “inevitability” due to her original answer on the issue, will it be too little too late?
According to the Buffalo News, Spitzer faced a virtual rebellion on this issue — from groups and New York staters across the boards. Worse (for him): his once stellar, shining poll ratings had begun to dim:
Spitzer has been facing gloomy prospects over his license plan. A new poll out Tuesday showed his standing among voters plummeting because of the issue.
Senate Republicans were already threatening to make a major issue out of the policy during next spring’s budget talks, which could halt action on other matters. Furthermore, Spitzer already had said he was delaying the licensing policy for up to a year.
The opposition spread wildly in recent weeks. While it drew the expected partisan rebukes from Republicans in the Legislature, Democrats, too, joined in, as did the mayor of New York City, a former commissioner of the federal Sept. 11 commission, family members of victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks and others. The most vocal critics, though, were county clerks, who run motor vehicle offices for the state.
In all, 20 clerks said they would not implement the policy … which drew threats of legal action by Spitzer. Erie County Clerk Kathleen C. Hochul, a Democrat appointed earlier this year by Spitzer, said she would call local police agencies to have illegal immigrants arrested and deported if they sought a driver’s license in one of her branches.
For Democrats, the policy announcement by Spitzer … which reversed a state program begun after the 2001 terrorist attacks … was poison. They angrily denounced Spitzer for unveiling it a month before the November elections, which gave Republican candidates an instant message with which to campaign in local contests.
The policy also helped drive down the poll numbers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic presidential campaign. Originally, she avoided stating her position, but then in a recent Democratic debate Clinton both supported and opposed the plan, leading opponents to tag her as waffling on an important immigration issue.
And Spitzer just had to look at his own numbers to see the possible punches in the upcoming ballots, the Albany Times Union notes:
The new poll showed that his favorability rating had fallen below 50 percent for the first time ever, a remarkable fall for a candidate who swept into office with nearly 70 percent of the vote a year ago. Even fellow Democrats joined in bashing Spitzer, giving resonance to poll responses that showed just 25 percent of New Yorkers would vote to re-elect the governor and 49 percent would prefer to elect “someone else” in 2010.
Of course, he had faced lousy poll numbers on this issue before….but…:
A month earlier, talking about a Siena poll that also showed heavy opposition among voters, the governor was more defensive, saying he does not look at or respond to polls.
“At the end of the day, when what you do is right, I have confidence the public will be supportive and I’m sure that will happen,” he said then. “I’ve undertaken an issue now I deeply believe is right in terms of security for the state, in terms of knowing who is driving … The last thing you will ever see me do is govern based on the popularity of an issue.”
But when you’re under attack by Republicans, pressured by Democrats, pointed to as possibly causing the deconstruction of a Presidential candidate, vilified by talk show hosts and called names by Lou Dobbs, what’s a governor to do?
24 Responses to “New York Governor Spitzer Dropping Illegal Immigrants Drivers License Plan”
[...] post by Joe Gandelman This was written by . Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 12:38 am. Filed under [...]
[...] Clark New York Governor Spitzer Dropping Illegal Immigrants Drivers License Plan » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
[...] KD Griffin had some great ideas on this topic.You can read a snippet of the post here.That explanation is virtually identical to Clinton’s statements on the issue — and gives the Democratic front-runner a ready-made answer when the topic is inevitably raised at tomorrow’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas. … [...]
This is so crazy. Everyone is pulling in a different direction, which just means deadlock all the way.
It’s obvious we can’t wish the illegal immigrants away, no matter how hard Lou Dobbs huffs and puffs, ant we should just accept some means of handling handling the situation. Living in a fantasy world of perfect solutions is just making everything worse.
The fact is, these immigrants will drive, with or withou livenses, with or without insurance. Spitzer’s proposal was pragmatic, and would have benefited the other drivers on the road.
But no! People insist on acting as if businesses will stop hiring illegals and as if those illegals will stop driving to work. Fantasy land over reality every time.
Spitzer’s Plan B, with special, limited use licesses was a good temporary solution until we finally get a bill to deal with the problem. It would havd had the extra benefit of helping to identify the holders of these lidenses. Good plans are being sacrufuced rught and left for the sake of some illusory dream.
It looks like we prefer chaos over management.
[...] Clark New York Governor Spitzer Dropping Illegal Immigrants Drivers License Plan » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
doma, cutting through the ideologue chest-thumping coming from politicos left and right, let me ask you a practical question:
If you were an illegal alien living in New York, would you trust the system enough to come on down and register for a “limited use” license? I doubt I would…
And for me, that makes this “solution” a non-starter on practical grounds. IMHO, my governor has more important business to attend to and this issue isn’t worth the trouble. Let him crusade on this when he gets his federal appointment in the next administration (although at this point his self-destruction is looking to be preventing that), but not now.
Oh, and JOE:
The trackbacks appearing within the regular comments are really distracting and take away from honest dialogue here. Yes, we know that University Update, umm, borrows 95% of your content…
when the Democrats won control of Congress, there was a large amount of discussion about government oversight of executive functions. So, why wasn’t Governor Elliot Spitzer called in front of Congress that asked what the hell he thought he was doing. Maybe Congress could have called in DHS and asked their opinion of the program. They could have asked other states what they would do with New York ID’s after such a program was establ9ished.
However, since Congress really isn’t interested in oversight and is definitely not interested in any oversight of Democrats, Congress, once again, failed in the oversight of border protection and functions.
Also, maybe someone should ask the Democratic candidates at the Las Vegas debates how they reconcile their health care plans (free healthcare for all), their education plans (free college for all) with their immigration plans (American citizenship for everyone who wants it).
SD – What Spitzer is doing is under the “conservative values” concept of state rights. I personally think it’s a stupid idea, but give him some points for trying. Immigration will be fixed with SS – LOL.
Rudi,
The constitution does not allow the states to have their own immigraiton policies. The left has repeatedly used that to beat down initiatives in places like California that sought to deny benefits to illegal aliens. The left did not seem to care about states rights then.
Of course, now that the politician have a (D) after his name, the state’s rights issue plays.
Idio-
Spitzer is hardly crusading.
He is trying to deal with a major problem on the roads of NY, and what he did was in reaction to the complints of other drivers.
Half of the country wants one thing, and the other half wants the opposite.
I’m sick of both halves and their whining.
They just destroy every effort to bring this under control, and then complain, complain, complain.
The whole country is having a temper tantrun, and I wish I could send to bed without supper.
??? !!!
What Spitzer attempted to do was absolutely, deliberately, unquestionably wrong.
He’s pandering to minorities and deliberately undermining, in the wrong direction, immigration law and policy in this country. He belongs in prison.
Even writers to the liberal and Democratic Party flagship New York Times are overwhelmingly critical of the dirtbag.
He’s a fine example of Cyanide Nation degeneracy (he already has been in Albany, the most dysfunctional state capital in the nation, where the word “dysfunctional” is routinely used throughout the state to refer to it), deliberate flouting of the laws of this nation (deserving of prison), a classic “21st century Democrat” star devoid of morality and obscessed with manipulation and absolute power.
Naturally, many of us expect him to go to Washington to join a Democratic executive branch someday, if not try to be President himself. He’d be great in a Hillary Clinton administration, for example.
Deliberate, intentional flouting of the laws of this nation, be it news-and-vote-buying stunts like Spitzer’s, or the instances of some muncipalities ordering non-compliance and non-cooperation with immigration or national-securitylaws, are criminal as well as vile and should result in imprisonment if not worse.
This is just another attempt to appeal to minority voters and get more votes, a “21st century Democrat”: regressive, retrograde, morally retarded.
I suspect Congressional Democrats as well as the Democratic Presidential candidates told Spitzer to suspend this nonsense until after the 2008 elections, because this obviously would have harmed their chances.
SD- Spitzer vetted it with Homeland Security Director Michael Chertov. The opposition is not coming from the federal government, which has failed miserably to lead on this hot potato of an issue. Now we will see slogans and politicizing of the issue to the point where no one will be able to discuss it in a rational way.
DLS-
So, it seems you have an opnion, l
I would be more prone to take it seriously if it wasn’t expressed in reams of insults to all who disagree with you.
As it is, your arguments just come across on a par with crank phone calls. I hang up on those.
That was the nature of Spitzer’s plan and its supporters — it was an ambitious political stunt.
They can be honest as well as arrogant and retrograde, what I saw down to the county and municipal government levels when I was living in New York: “We’ll have to raise taxes, of course.”
Add to that what is inherent here among supporters of the plan as well as those that also like the vote-buying nature of it. What is inherent here is a modern liberal childish entitlement mentality and contempt for constraints. Of course they should be given driver’s licenses and anything else they need (or want). They shouldn’t have to wait, or to follow any laws or rules or procedures. Who cares about these things? So what? We should be able to do anything or get anything we want, no fault, no responsibility. The last thing we ever want to hear is the word “no.”
… you wanted to, but you simply choose not to, and you normally have your mind made up beforehand.
DLS- I think Spitzer is just a governor trying to deal with the issue. If what he was doing broke federal laws, THIS justice dept would have been all over him. Its like Iraq -nobody knows what to do, but won’t admit it. Lou Dobbs doesn’t know what to do about it either. Not dealing with it is no solution., and the longer we wait the worse it will get.
Based on my observations of him while I lived in New York, I believe otherwise. (His earlier efforts as attorney general were hardly “white knight” good deeds, but were exercises of raw power and even viciousness as well as news-seeking prior to his pursuit of the governorship.) I’ve already expressed my views of what he was doing as well as what he is like.
On a more neutral note, as I said earlier, I suspect the Democrats in Congress and seeking the Presidency (especially You-Know-Who) probably told him to cease, at least until after 2008, because this could only hurt other Democrats.
K, Bush and his people are anti-immigration-reform (in the direction most in this country want reform to go, namely begin by enforcing existing immigration laws, control the borders, and possibly consider limits on immigration) because of ties to the business community.
So, what laws has Spitzer broken, D? If he’s pandering, he’s going completely against popular opinion. I just don’t think anyone has a good solution to this mess.
Also, even Republicans praised the job he did as AG. Its a challenge that every governor has to face- what do they do fill up the jails with illegal immigrants? This has to be solved as a nation in Washington, but noone has the guts to talk seriously about solutions any more.
You know that cities like NYC depend on immigrant labor for the restaurants and hotels. That’s why it was declared a sanctuary city.
I do believe that was is and always will be
STUPID,STUPID,STUPID.
I do believe in legal imigration,
NOT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
Someone fell asleep and NY has millions of illegals in their mists,and it is legal slavery.
I am sorry but round’m up send’m home, then keep’m out.
mexico has military on their borders why not us ? why are we so afraid of protecting ourselves here at home.
hellinahandbasket