Advocates for Granting Driver Licenses to Undocumented Point to Pandemic

Because it can take a long time to enact a bill, and because many bills wither and die half-way to the goal of enactment,  advocacy groups often add new wrinkles to their lobbying campaigns in the hope of re-energizing their causes, generating positive publicity, and spurring movement in the legislature.

What happened earlier this month in the project to pass a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain Massachusetts driver licenses is a case in point.

During the current legislative session (and in previous sessions as well), advocates for licensing the undocumented have presented the cause as a commonsensical response to the transportation needs of a vital, hardworking, family-oriented sector of the population and as an evidence-based step toward improving  public safety.  Now, they're adding this argument:

Allowing the undocumented to drive legally would serve to inhibit the spread of the coronavirus and simultaneously boost the state's economic recovery from the COVID-19-related recession.

Here's Natalicia Tracy, executive director of the Brazilian Workers Center and co-chair of the Driving Families Forward campaign:

"This bill -- to license all drivers, regardless of immigration status -- needs to be an essential piece of our public health and economic security policy.  Without driver's licenses, many of our essential workers have to crowd onto buses or subway cars to get to work.  This puts their lives and our community's health at risk."

The above was excerpted from an article published online May 21 by the State House News Service and headlined, "Driver's License Bill Reframed as Public Health Priority."

In that article, the other Driving Families Forward co-chair, Roxana Rivera, an officer in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was quoted thusly:

"Before the pandemic, this policy (licensing the undocumented) was common sense.  Now, it is about protecting lives and helping workers put food on the table.  If undocumented workers are better able to access good jobs safely, they will help our economy bounce back more quickly and help the state generate more revenue in the long term."

Last year, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center estimated that 185,000 undocumented immigrants were residing in Massachusetts.  The folks at Driving Families Forward predict that, if these immigrants were permitted to drive, up to 78,000 of them would obtain licenses during the three years following enactment of such a law.

Senate Bill 2641, An Act Relative to Work and Family Mobility, and its identical lower-branch companion, House Bill 3012, would change Chapter 90 of the Massachusetts General Laws by, one, eliminating the portion of it stating that "no license of any type may be issued to any person who does not have a lawful presence in the United States," and, two, adding language to it making persons who cannot provide "proof of lawful presence" eligible for driver licenses "if they meet all other qualifications for licensure and provide satisfactory proof" to the Registry of Motor Vehicles "of identity, date of birth and Massachusetts residency."

SB2641/HB3012 were heard before the Joint Committee on Transportation last September.  On April 21, the committee voted 14 to 4 to send a redrafted version of it, with a favorable report, to the Senate Ways & Means Committee.  No action on it has since been taken.

The bill sent by the Transportation Committee to Senate Ways & Means would, if enacted, require an undocumented immigrant who is seeking a license to furnish two forms of identification, including at least one with a photograph and one with a date of birth.

Rep. Christine Barber, D-Somerville, a co-sponsor of the bill in the House, said in April, "The minute the bill was released favorably, we started hearing directly from colleagues who are really supportive and happy that the bill is moving.  There is support.  We're continuing to build support." [Source: State House News Service]  Rep. Barber also said:

"Undocumented people actually have a lot of documents.  They're not just legal permanent residents of the United States...Most of these folks are people who have lived here for a really long time.  They're members of our community.  They need to drive to either get to work or to take their kids to a doctor.  They are probably driving anyway and we'd rather have people have insurance, have passed a driver's test, pass a vision test, and actually have a license when they get pulled over, than to have them driving and not be insured."

In all, 84 members of the House and Senate have signed onto SB2641/HB3012 as sponsors or co-sponsors.  That number represents 42 percent of the 200-member legislature, which consists of 40 senators and 160 representatives.

Also recorded in favor of the bill are Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera, Lynn Mayor Tom McGee and Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone.

Some legislative leaders are reportedly cool to the idea of advancing  An Act Relative to Work and Family Mobility any farther than Senate Ways & Means in this session.  And Governor Charlie Baker is flat-out opposed to the bill.

This past February, explaining his opposition, Baker said, "I've said for many years that I think it's really hard to build the kind of safeguards into that kind of process that would create the kind of security that would be hard to live up to some of the federal and state standards with respect to security and identification.  And, for those reasons, I don't support that legislation."

The driver licenses envisaged by SB2641/HB3012 would not be compliant with the new federally-tailored REAL-ID program; licensees could not use them, for example, to board a plane or gain entry to a federal building.

In matters of prognostication, I am as accurate as a chimp tossing darts at a board.  Something there is about the métier of blogging, however, that rather foolishly invites/encourages predictions.  I'll rush in then to predict An Act Relative to Work and Family Mobility will pass the Senate but never come to a vote in the House this year.

If I'm wrong, and if the House does take up the bill and enact it, and if the governor vetoes it, I predict there will be enough votes in the Senate, 27, to override the veto, but not enough in the House, 107, to effect a successful override, meaning the long, hard-fought campaign to provide qualified undocumented immigrants with the opportunity to legally drive a motor vehicle in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will have expired tantalizingly short of victory.