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Sources: Spitzer plan is shelved
Licenses for illegal immigrants to be abandoned, AP told
BY DEVLIN BARRETT The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to abandon a plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, officials familiar with the decision told The Associated Press Tuesday night.
The governor is due to meet this morning with New York’s congressional delegation, many of whom openly oppose the program. Debate over the issue also has spilled into New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.
   The governor’s office signaled to New York lawmakers Tuesday that Spitzer will say at the meeting that he is shelving the plan and that immigration is a federal issue to be handled by Washington, according to congressional aides who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.
   Last month, Spitzer sought to salvage the license effort by striking a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to create three distinct types of state driver’s licenses: one “enhanced” that will be as secure as a passport; a second-tier license good for boarding airplanes; and a third marked not valid for federal purposes that would be available to illegal immigrants and others.
   Clinton has been criticized by her Democratic and Republican rivals for her noncommittal answers on the subject.
   She has said she sympathizes with governors like Spitzer who are forced to confront the issue of immigration because the federal government has not enacted immigration reform. She has not taken a position on the actual plan offered by Spitzer.
   A Spitzer spokeswoman did not immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment.
   The governor introduced the plan with the goal of increased security, safer roads and an opportunity to bring immigrants “out of the shadows.”
   Opponents charged Spitzer would make it easier for wouldbe terrorists to get identification, and make the country less safe. Many New Yorkers agreed with them.
   About 70 percent of New Yorkers oppose the license plan, according to a Siena College poll of 625 registered state voters released Tuesday. The poll, conducted Nov. 5-8, had a sampling margin of 3.9 percentage points.
   “As I’ve said on numerous occasions, this is a tough issue,” Spitzer said Tuesday in New York City. “And it’s one where we’re continuing to try to talk to the public, explain why we took the position that I have thus far, and explain what issues we’re trying to address. But I understand — you don’t need to see the most recent poll to understand that this is an issue that has touched a nerve in the public and we’re trying to address that in a thoughtful, modulated way, and then we’ll see where we go.”

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http://www.timesunion.com
Clinton says no to licenses for illegals  
  
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press
Last updated: 9:14 p.m., Wednesday, November 14, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday came out against granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, after weeks of pressure in the presidential race to take a position on a now-failed ID plan from her home state governor.
  
Clinton has faced criticism from candidates in both parties for her noncommittal answers on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's attempt to allow illegal immigrants in his state to receive driver's licenses. Spitzer abandoned the effort Wednesday.

"I support Governor Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal," Clinton said in a statement. "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system."

Clinton stumbled when asked about the issue during a Democratic debate two weeks ago, and her new position comes the day before another debate where opponents are expected to raise the issue again.

Rival campaigns made clear they were not letting go of the issue.

"When it takes two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it's easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them," said Barack Obama spokesman Bill Burton, referring to the Clinton campaign's admission that aides had staged a question for her at an Iowa event.

Colleen Flanagan, a spokesman for Chris Dodd, called Clinton's position "flip-flopping cubed. She was for it before she was against it, before she was for it, before she was against it."

Spitzer met with New York lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday, and conceded that there was too much public opposition to his plan. Clinton did not attend the meeting.

"It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic," he said.

The Democratic governor introduced the plan two months ago with the goal of increased security, safer roads and an opportunity to bring immigrants "out of the shadows." Opponents charged the scheme would make it easier for would-be terrorists to get identification, and make the country less safe.

The decision is another example of the roadblocks high-profile immigration reforms have faced this year. Less than five months ago, Congress failed to pass legislation that would legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants and fortify the border with Mexico.

"The federal government has lost control of its borders... and now has no solution to deal with it," Spitzer said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called Spitzer's reversal on the license issue "a good development" and said immigration is a federal issue for which his department has to "ramp up enforcement."

"What I want to make sure is that states aren't working at cross purposes with us and enabling the kind of conduct we're enforcing against," Chertoff told The Associated Press by telephone from London.

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http://www.timesunion.com
Spitzer drops plan to issue licenses to illegal immigrants  
  
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:05 p.m., Wednesday, November 14, 2007

WASHINGTON -- New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer surrendered Wednesday in his effort to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The move may quiet some critics, but it spurred Hillary Rodham Clinton to speak out.
  
Clinton, who has come under fire from other presidential candidates of both parties for her non-committal answers to questions about the license plan, on Wednesday spelled out her position.

"I support Gov. Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal," Sen. Clinton said in a statement. "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system."

Spitzer abandoned his plan in the face of overwhelming opposition and after a private meeting with New York lawmakers in Washington, saying "New York state cannot successfully address this problem on its own."

"It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic," he said.

The Democratic governor introduced the plan two months ago with the goal of increased security, safer roads and an opportunity to bring immigrants "out of the shadows." Opponents charged the scheme would make it easier for would-be terrorists to get identification, and make the country less safe.

The decision is another example of the roadblocks that high-profile immigration reforms have faced this year. Less than five months ago, Congress failed to pass legislation that would legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants and fortify the border with Mexico.

"The federal government has lost control of its borders, has allowed millions of undocumented immigrants to enter our country and now has no solution to deal with it," Spitzer said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called Spitzer's reversal on the license issue "a good development" and said immigration is a federal issue for which his department has to "ramp up enforcement."

"What I want to make sure is that states aren't working at cross-purposes with us and enabling the kind of conduct we're enforcing against," Chertoff told The Associated Press by phone.

Last month, Spitzer sought to salvage the license effort by striking a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to create three distinct types of state driver's licenses: one "enhanced" card that would be as secure as a passport for crossing the border; a second-tier license good for boarding airplanes; and a third marked not valid for federal purposes that would be available to illegal immigrants and others.

The deal with Washington may still be salvaged: while aides to Spitzer said they were still reviewing parts of it, Chertoff said the agreement would "absolutely" still go forward.

About 70 percent of New Yorkers opposed the plan, according to a Siena College poll of 625 registered voters released Tuesday. The poll, conducted Nov. 5-8, had a sampling error margin of 3.9 percentage points.

After meeting privately with the governor, New York Democrats who agreed with him said they understood he had to retreat -- but insisted the need for immigration reform would only grow.

"This governor was not defeated by anything other than the hate in this country toward immigrants right now," said Rep. Jose Serrano, a Bronx Democrat.

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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Two in a slump: Spitzer and Sweeney
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.

   Poor John Sweeney. Poor Eliot Spitzer, too, though in a different way.
   Sweeney, the former congressman whose most radiant moment was perhaps leading the charge to stop the recount of presidential ballots at the Miami-Dade government center in 2000 — “Shut it down!” — has been on a downward spiral since losing a re-election bid to newcomer Kirsten Gillibrand last year.
   Or since before that. You could say he’s been on a downward spiral since it was revealed that he had a little domestic incident with his wife in which he either did or did not knock her around, and the State Police withheld documents that would have showed the truth. After which big beefy John Sweeney claimed that his wife was the one who had knocked him around. Then a divorce, his second.
   Or you could take it back a few years to when he drove his Jeep into a power pole coming back from a skiing trip in Washington County.
   And then coming up to the present, when he was pulled over by the State Police at 1:20 a.m. on the Northway for allegedly swerving out of his lane and was charged with DWI for allegedly having a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, or in plain English, driving drunk. (Last night, he pleaded guilty in court to misdemeanor DWI.)
   Oh me, oh my. As for what, if anything, he has been doing for a living since leaving Congress at the beginning of this year, I don’t know. I do know that his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission shows his campaign committee to be $206,822 in the hole.
   Then we have Gov. Eliot “Steamroller” Spitzer, with the worst political sense of any governor in my memory, though granted, my memory extends back only to Hugh Carey. And not just bad political sense but arrogance, I guess you have to call it: acting as if he alone knows what’s good for New York and he alone can put it into effect, without getting into the gutter with other elected officials.
   He decides it would be good public policy to allow illegal immigrants to obtain drivers’ licenses, so he decrees it. Just like that.
   And now look: Having to back down in the face of overwhelming opposition, including from his own Democratic Party.
   I don’t believe I have ever seen an announced new policy blow up in the face of a New York politician as this licenses-for-illegals blew up in the face of Eliot Spitzer. Seventytwo percent of New Yorkers were against it, according to a Siena College poll.
   A majority of county clerks, responsible for administering local DMV offices, declared they would defy it.
   Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco of Schenectady catapulted himself to national attention with his opposition.
   Drivers’ licenses for terrorists, is how it was portrayed.
   I sympathize with the governor when he says the federal government has abdicated its responsibility in dealing with illegal immigration and “those who beat their chests the loudest” over this issue “still have no solution at all.”
   It’s cheap and easy to decry illegal immigration and to wave the flag but somewhat more diffi cult to figure out how to deal with the millions of actual people who are here without papers, not plotting to blow up buildings but just washing dishes and picking apples for us.
   Drivers’ licenses are the least of the problem, in my view.
   Anyway, there you have two political animals, Sweeney and Spitzer, who have fallen over themselves.

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Spitzer blamed for license plan failure
BY LARRY MCSHANE The Associated Press

   Long before Gov. Eliot Spitzer killed his plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, there were plenty of pallbearers awaiting its funeral: CNN’s Lou Dobbs, politicians on both sides of the aisle and the majority of New Yorkers loudly opposed to the idea.
   But most observers agreed Thursday that the person most responsible for sinking the bill was Spitzer himself.
   “This basically showed that Eliot Spitzer was out of touch,” said Republican Rep. Peter King of New York, one of the bill’s critics. “This was the wrong thing at the wrong time, and the governor needs to get in better touch with the people of New York.”
   State Conservative Party chairman Michael Long said the plan’s demise was the result of “a combination of a lot of things” — including his party’s ads opposing it. But he, too, felt Spitzer shouldered much of the blame for the failure.
   “He’s not necessarily politically tone deaf,” Long said. “But this was the arrogance of a man who thinks, ‘This is what I’m going to do’ despite universal public pressure that caused it to collapse.”
   Spitzer, a Democrat, announced a plan in September to allow illegal immigrants with valid foreign passports to obtain driver’s licenses, a proposal that would have affected an estimated 1 million people in New York state.
   The governor said the program would provide increased security, safer roads and an opportunity to bring immigrants “out of the shadows.” Opponents said it could permit potential terrorists to get identification, and make the country less safe.
   Spitzer pulled the plug on the plan Wednesday amid overwhelming opposition, including a poll that showed 72 percent of New Yorkers were against the move.
   Dobbs, host of a nightly CNN program, ripped Spitzer regularly over the proposal, lambasting the governor as “a spoiled rich kid brat.” After Spitzer withdrew the plan, Dobbs said the governor was “somewhat graceless in refusing to take responsibility for an irresponsible act.”
   In announcing his decision, Spitzer said that the federal government had “lost control” of its borders and left states to deal with the consequences.
   But Dobbs, who put what was a state issue on the national stage, didn’t claim credit for Spitzer’s capitulation.
   “That’s for someone else to assess,” he said Thursday. “I made my feelings pretty clear. I think the winners are the people of New York. The citizens of the state made their views known on this matter.”
   The attention paid by Dobbs and others made the license proposal part of the Democratic presidential debate, with Sen. Hillary Clinton bearing the brunt of criticism over her noncommittal answers to questions about the plan. On Wednesday, Clinton announced she supported Spitzer’s decision to withdraw the proposal.
   While opposition to the Spitzer plan was bipartisan, some in the governor’s own party praised his effort — even if it ended with his proposal getting scrapped.
   “I thought that he went out on a limb on behalf of immigrants,” said Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano of the Bronx, a supporter of the plan. “He’s taken his lumps on this one, and people will analyze that he took a loss and had to back off.”  

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Dems’ silence abetted Spitzer on illegals

   [Gov. Eliot] Spitzer may “get it,” but your liberal paper still doesn’t.
   You say his decision was both commendable and confounding. Commendable in that it would make New York roads safer and auto insurances cheaper. Please tell me how a piece of paper makes my road safer? And at one point we heard the figure that it would lower insurance rates by as much as 30 percent for the average driver in New York. Can you seriously believe that our rates would come down? My insurance company would not commit to lowering it when asked.
   Regarding confounding, “because it was politically dead on arrival.” No, not politically dead; this was just a bad plan to begin with! Poll after poll proved this and proved that opposition to the plan was bipartisan. Yes, there were some calls from a limited few right-wing conservatives that took this to a fear level, but to refer to opponents as xenophobes is just childish name calling.
   And last, but not least, making frontrunning candidate [Sen.] Hillary Clinton look foolish. She doesn’t need any help from Spitzer on that count. Where were she and all the other Democrats with their opinions when this issue first started and was well under way? Why is it just now that we are hearing from them? “As president, I will not support driver’s licenses for undocumented people,” says Hillary. She still can’t say the word illegal for fear of offending her voting base, which she now has lost since they won’t be able to vote for her with their newly issued driver’s licenses.
   If it weren’t for Spitzer’s meetings last week in Washington, where I’m sure there was a lot of political arm-twisting and strategizing, which did not include talk of road safety and insurance reductions, our bully governor would still think he was right and his supporters would still be silent.
   JAMES MYERS
   Ballston Spa  

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In truth, Sen. Clinton is right when she frames the issue as a national one. Governors shouldn't have to decide how to handle the illegal immigration issue. That's a national issue that demands a federal solution. Until then, each governor will find himself or herself facing a dilemma of how to treat undocumented immigrants in their states. Some states already issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, and there has been little public outcry about it. But Mr. Spitzer's political foes raised the heat so high on this issue that the governor might well have concluded the only way he can escape getting burned is to back off.

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How does GOP always manage to make Democrats look bad?

   The pandemonium that accompanied Gov. Spitzer’s driver’s license proposal may begin to subside now that it has been withdrawn, although some vow to keep stirring the embers. Nevertheless, it isn’t too late for both sides of the political divide to learn some lessons from the controversy.
   Republicans, and those who viewed the proposal as the machinations of a powerhungry executive who believes he can rule without consultation, might want to look over their shoulders. Since January 2001, they have supported a president who, as the highest executive in our land, has embraced no less a Draconian (and undemocratic) philosophy. His personal convictions, supported by cherry-picked intelligence, have led us into a debilitating war that has destroyed the credibility of United States around the world. His interpretation of torture redefi nes rational (and internationally accepted) criteria; his decision to label someone as “enemy combatant” removes them from the protection of the Constitution; his signature on a “signing statement” negates or revises laws passed by the people’s representatives in Congress; and his office permits him to decide when he, as president, is not bound by the rule of law.
   If a New York governor’s use of executive power scares Republicans, they might want to consider the consequences when a Democrat becomes president and embraces these same power precedents.
   Democrats, and those who saw the merit in Gov. Spitzer’s plan, ought to admit (perhaps with grudging admiration) the ability of their opposition to frame the discussion of political and social issues. They might want to also acknowledge their own impotence. For both sides, public safety was the fundamental concern, but the very real issue of safety on the state’s roads and highways was trumped by dubious fears about international terrorism. If this were the first time Democrats were outflanked by Republicans perhaps it could be considered an anomaly, but it seems like it’s the thousandth time.
   Democrats must recognize that they need more than good sense on their side, they need to learn to stand behind their beliefs and defend them without fear of being accused of weakness and disloyalty. If Republicans can publicly defend waterboarding with a straight face and without embarrassment, Democrats can certainly do the same for issuing a driver’s license to the itinerant farm workers who harvest America’s produce.
   DENIS BRENNAN
   Niskayuna  

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His personal convictions, supported by cherry-picked intelligence, have led us into a debilitating war that has destroyed the credibility of United States around the world.

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Democrats can certainly do the same for issuing a driver’s license to the itinerant farm workers who harvest America’s produce.