Opponents of a new law that will allow immigrants without legal status to seek driver’s licenses took a preliminary step this week toward asking voters to scrap the measure, while Democrats celebrated their success in pushing the bill and overcoming Gov. Charlie Baker’s opposition, the State House News Service reported.
A campaign filed paperwork Monday with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to create a committee, called Fair and Secure Massachusetts, seeking to repeal the law enacted over Baker’s veto last week.
A signing ceremony for the new law was held Monday, SNHS reported. Similar ceremonies for other legislation usually feature Baker wielding a pen over the parchment, but in this case it was Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ronald Mariano wielding their override pens.
Starting July 1, 2023, anyone in Massachusetts, regardless of immigration status, can apply for a standard driver’s license. Undocumented immigrants will still need to prove their identity, date of birth, and residency in Massachusetts, using a range of documents including either a valid, unexpired foreign passport or a valid, unexpired consular identification document.
Baker vetoed the bill on May 27, saying the Registry of Motor Vehicles did not have the capacity to verify the identities of immigrants without legal status, and arguing that the bill “significantly increases the risk that noncitizens will be registered to vote.”
The House voted 119-36 and the Senate 32-8 to override Baker’s veto and make the measure law.
To put the question of whether the law should be repealed on the November ballot, petitioners will need to collect at least 40,120 signatures from registered voters, no more than 10,030 of which can come from a single county, in less than three months. The campaign will have until August 24 to submit signatures to local election officials for certification, and until Sept. 7 to submit them to Secretary of State William Galvin’s office, SHNS reported.
The Secretary of the Commonwealth, Bill Galvin, the person who actually oversees our elections, said Baker was dead wrong about this law somehow allowing non-citizens to vote. Baker knows this, he’s just pandering to the lunatic conspiracy theorists who will use any crazy excuse in the book to scream “voter fraud”. Very thankful we will elect a new Democratic governor in November- VOTE!
Massachusetts should have a one party form of government just like Russia and China?
Don’t vote Rebublican or Democrat, vote good leadership, Baker is an example.
An anti Trump leader.
Well said.
No one who’s at all familiar with the Massachusetts legislature, especially the House of Representatives, would call it a “one party form of government just like Russia and China.” A significant majority of legislators in both houses, especially the Senate, have a D for Democrat after their names, but in ideology and priorities they look more like a European-style coalition than a single political party. Charlie Baker is by almost all accounts a likeable guy, but a leader? I’m not seeing it. Perhaps Mr. Hess could provide some examples?
Primary season is just getting under way. (The state primary is on Tuesday, Sept. 6.) The Democrats have multiple strong contenders for almost all statewide offices — incumbent treasurer Deborah Goldberg is running unopposed in the primary, but there will be two candidates for governor, three for lieutenant governor, three for attorney general, two for secretary of state, and two for auditor. Listen to any of them and you’ll learn plenty about the serious challenges facing the commonwealth that aren’t being addressed by the Baker administration. (The best I can say about any of the Republican candidates is that they make Baker-Polito look like a dream team.)
An example of Republican leadership is not buying in to Trump’s election fraud lies.
Baker didn’t buy in 2016, outspoken in 2020.
I do not want any party to hold all three branches, state or federal.
In an effort to provide additional background, other states (i.e., VT) provide a “driver’s privilege card” (it’s not Real ID compliant), whereas, Massachusetts legislature has opted to provide undocumented persons a “driver’s license.” Baker wanted the former.
A driver’s license should be nothing more than a license to drive.
A National Identity Card must be carried by everone within our borders.
Just like in in the good old days in the Soviet Bloc.
No red blooded, Rightious, God fearing, Conservative Patroit would have it any other way.
How about giving them social security cards as well. If you have the right to drive, you should have the right to pay taxes. I also agree with you Albert. Baker was a fantastic governor who tried to be bipartisan.
The vast majority illegal immigrants do pay taxes.
Certainly sales taxes and by extension real estate taxes.
Many have Federal taxes withheld by their employers.
Money the Federal government. never sees.
Immigrants want to pay taxes, have Social Security Cards, be part of the American dream.
Just like your forefathers.
Baker was a fantastic anti Trump Govonor
Many, but not all, undocumented immigrants file tax returns using a Tax ID number. Similar to American citizens, many, but not all, undocumented immigrants claim their actual earned wages for the calendar year on their tax returns.
Few Americans claim there actual earned wages for the calendar year.
The Island’s restaurant industry is a prime example.
Not to mention charter fishing tips.
Nice to see this one actually come into law. A long overdue great idea.
Some discussion here about Gov. Baker.
I’m a liberal, and I really like the guy.
No sex scandals.
No corruption scandals,
No sleazy back door middle of the night deals.
He listened to both sides of arguments and based decisions not on what a certain loser president or his blindered minions thought, but what was best for the people of the commonwealth.
A good leader who was not blinded by political ideology.
I’ll vote for him if he runs for president.
In a heartbeat.
This one has both pro’s and con’s. I do think the pro’s outweighs the cons. There is no longer an excuse for someone not to have a DL that demonstrates that they passed a test making our streets safer. And when we travel to other countries don’t we get to rent cars and drive abroad? I understand how it can look like an incentive to enter this country illegally but there so many larger ones than that.
Keller, I honestly thought from reading all your previous posts eviscerating R’s that you would ever consider voting for one. I don’t care who you vote for I’m just glad that you really do have an open mind.
Carl, there’s a big difference between our fathers(and grandfather’s) Republican party and what today’s republican party has become. Baker understands the difference. That’s why I, and a good amount of Democrats, support him.
Carl– I voted for Gerald Ford in the 1974 presidential election.
The main reason I voted for him was because he had the Chutzpah to pardon Richard Nixon in a politically charged environment.
Make no mistake, I thought Nixon was a corrupt and deplorable person that should have been punished to the full extent of the law.
But Ford knew the country did not need congress to spend their time pursuing a corrupt maggot and bog the country down– With a stroke of a pen, the United states moved on, and Nixon was ‘exiled” to San Clemente . It was not a case of political partisanship. And Nixon after all had enough
morality and a commitment to the principals of the constitution to know when the gig was up and resigned.
Look at the decisiveness that is currently going on in this country because an obviously corrupt wanna be dicktarer cannot accept the fact hat he lost an election and is a traitor to the values and rules of the constitution.
I am not a lock step voter beholden to the supposed values of a particular political party.
Thank you for acknowledging that.
Eviscerating R’s is recent, a Trump thing.
He has eviserated the majority of the party, he calls them RINOs, he names new ones almost daily.
I’m guessing that at least 20% of Trump voters voted at least once for Clinton or not at all.
Trump is great at sweeping up the disaffected.
I remember when America was great. Trump had a D beside his name and made generous donations to the Clinton campaign.
Anyone who votes by the letters shouldn’t vote..
I will not only vote for but campaign for any Republican Govonor candidate that publicly states that Trump lost 2020 and that J6 was a long planned insurrection/failed coup.
Lock up all the plotters.
This is not 1930’s Nazi Germany.
Yet.
I have always voted for Baker, never Trump.
I don’t want Massachusetts to be a one party state like China and Russia.
Hate saying this but why should the illegals get a license. You say they pay taxes really most work under the tables, construction, cooking and labor building homes. Just wait when the 18,000 illegals coming every day from 169 Countries you won’t have jobs, not good .. Open your eyes people getting caught with our pants down again who suffers we the American taxpayers.
Because immigrations status is not function of the ability to safely drive an automobile.
We have allowed the driver’s license to be become our defacto National Identity Card.
We don’t like the sound of that, it soumds so Soviet Bloc.
Anyone who wants a Massachusetts driver’s license and can show that they can safely drive a car, at least by Massachusetts standards, shoud be able to get a a driver’s license, immigrations status should not be a factor.
.
Most illegals want to work, to pay taxes, to become patriotic citizens.
Just like your forefathers.
We have underemployment, 18,000 a day is not enough.
Without immigration our population is shrinking.
Who will work when we are old?
Hate saying this but a driver’s license should be based on driving ability not immigration status.
Driver’s licenses should not be a stand ins for National Identity Cards.
The Soviet Block, Cold War gave them a bad name.
Karen — if we accept them into the system, they will pay taxes and contribute to the prosperity of the country, just as your ancestors and mine did.
As far as immigrants taking away the jobs of Americans–
Have you read anything about restaurants cutting their hours because they can’t find enough staff ?
Seems to me we could use a few thousand workers on this island to take care of the “needs” of a few hundred millionaires.