Spitzer Still Doesn't Get It.

Today's Albany Times Union announces that Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to compromise on his policy to require motor vehicles departments to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. He appears to have taken up a suggestion from several quarters to create a class system of licenses. However, he hasn't accepted the specific suggestion that licenses for undocumented drivers identify them as such. Instead, he proposes a basic category of driver's license for which illegals would be eligible, and two higher license classes, one of which would enable bearers to drive into Canada or Mexico without passports, the other to conform to federal "Real ID" requirements and entitle bearers to board commercial buildings or enter federal buildings without passports.

The new proposal has already gotten a mixed response. Advocates of unconditional immigration have called it a sell-out, while local Republicans predictably call it a meaningless gesture. Unfortunately, they come closer to the truth. Spitzer may think that he's answered a major objection by providing that not all licenses will be equal, but his constituents won't appreciate that they'll have to pay extra money for an "Enhanced" license. Requiring the undocumented to pay a higher fee just to get their basic license might balance things out, but to my knowledge that hasn't been proposed. In any event, Spitzer has refused to concede the major point in dispute. Most if not all opponents of his original proposal believe that illegal immigrants don't have the right to drive cars in New York State. They remain unimpressed by the excuse that nothing can be done about the multitude of illegals here, though on the other hand I haven't exactly seen a surge of volunteers for the work of rounding up and deporting them. Their main point remains a valid one, and Spitzer has done nothing to help his case by ducking the issue and saying that illegal immigration is a federal, not a state problem.

The governor has still neglected to go before the people and explain his own position on the question of illegal immigration or explain why New Yorker should not complain about it. Can he possibly believe the party-line rhetoric that dismisses all criticism as fearmongering? Even if that's the case, he still needs to try to explain why people shouldn't be afraid. He might not persuade anybody, but it would at least look like he respected people enough to make the effort.