Rep. Joseph Cervantes (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
At least one Democrat in the Legislature says the state should repeal a law that allows undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.
Democrats on one House committee have tabled three bills taking aim at the controversial law, including a Gov. Susana Martinez-endorsed bill sponsored by Rep. Andy Nuñez, I-Hatch. Democrats in the Senate have also rejected attempts to repeal the law.
But state Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said it’s time for the law to go.
“I support repeal of the existing law,” Cervantes told NMPolitics.net.
That may be significant because if Nuñez can find a way to get his bill to the House floor, and has the support of the entire Republican caucus, he needs the votes of only two Democrats to pass the bill.
But Cervantes isn’t saying he supports Nuñez’s bill – only that he supports repealing the law. What that might look like isn’t clear, but Cervantes did say he wants Democrats to act.
“I think it would be a mistake for Democrats to remain passive on the issue,” he said.
‘A magnet for unintended exploitation’
Martinez and Republicans have put heavy political pressure on Democrats, running controversial radio ads and sending out robocalls that have led to House Democrats’ offices being flooded with phone calls. Polls have shown that the majority of New Mexicans want the law repealed.
Cervantes said the law was approved years ago, when the primary concerns were reducing the number of uninsured drivers on the road and giving law enforcement another tool in the battle against DWI and other crimes (someone with a driver’s license can more easily be checked for prior offenses).
But as other states have repealed similar laws, New Mexico has become “a magnet for unintended exploitation” of the law by people who come here with fraudulent papers to obtain a license, he said.
“The benefits served by the law do not outweigh the adverse consequences,” Cervantes said.
Some speculate that Nuñez might try to blast his bill out of the Consumer and Public Affairs Committee and bring it directly to the House floor for an up-or-down vote, but he needs two Democrats voting with him, in addition to the GOP caucus, to do that.
Whether he can make that happen isn’t clear.
A possible compromise?
State Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, said he thinks it’s possible the bill might pass the House, but he said if it does it’s “dead on arrival” in the Senate. On Monday, during debate on a bill related to provisional driving for minors, the Senate defeated two proposed GOP amendments that would have repealed the controversial law. That happened on a party-line vote.
Griego said he and others are working on what he hopes can be a compromise – legislation that would create two different licenses. One would be for those who provide proof of citizenship and could be used as a federally recognized document for boarding an airline and in other instances.
The other could be obtained without showing proof of citizenship and would allow someone to drive and obtain auto insurance, but it would not be federally recognized as a valid form of identification.
“We’re trying to find a way to compromise without discriminating against people,” Griego said. “There are a number of folks trying to figure out if there’s room for compromise.”