Today I sent the following letter to the Attorney General:
Dear Martha,
I was deeply disappointed to learn that you have a long-standing opposition to issuing licenses to certain drivers because of their immigration status – calling the idea a “crazy notion” in The Boston Herald several years ago. You also said on WRKO Radio, “I even learned some of our police chiefs are in favor of giving drivers licenses to people who are otherwise undocumented. I am not; I don’t think that is the way to go in that instance.”
As I stated in my testimony to the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee last week in support of the Safe Driving Bill (H.3285), this is an extraordinarily simple public safety issue: do we want drivers on the road whose driving skills have been properly vetted? The answer is, of course, “yes.” That is the underlying purpose of a driver’s license – ensure that drivers have passed vision and road tests, know the motor vehicle laws, and have auto insurance.
I believe that undocumented immigrants, like all residents of the Commonwealth ought to be judged on their contributions to society, not on their status under complex and much-debated federal law.
However, the matter at hand is not the many nuances of public policy on immigration. This is about keeping people safe on the roads and highways of Massachusetts. This is about common sense.
Today’s lead editorial in The Boston Globe makes a strong, urgent, and eloquent case for this legislation, arguing that “The answer, of course, is that undocumented workers aren’t the only ones on the road, and that bad driving is a danger to everyone.”
If people are making a contribution to society and the economy, they are working. They are running errands. They are attending to their families. They are visiting friends and relatives. In many cases, that requires driving. It makes no sense for unqualified drivers to be on the roads. It makes even less sense for it to be unlawful for people to use motor vehicles to carry out lawful and productive tasks.
Registrar of Motor Vehicles Celia Blue testified in support of the bill on behalf of the Patrick Administration, saying she estimated the measure could raise nearly $15 million in new revenue and provide additional business to driver education schools along with other benefits.
I would think that as one of the top officials in the state charged with protecting safety and defending against discrimination of people because of their origins you would share my views. I urge you to drop your long-standing opposition to drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants and support the Safe Driving Bill.
Sincerely,
Steve Grossman
“Martha has opposed these efforts in the past with the hope and belief that the federal government would enact comprehensive immigration reform to address many of these underlying issues. Because the federal government has failed to act, she is open to working with law enforcement, our elected leaders, and the immigrant community to take common-sense steps on this issue.”
Disclosure – I work for the Coakley campaign
Here we are in a campaign, and what does Martha Coakley say? She says that she has opposed drivers licenses in the past. BUT, now, all of a sudden, she is open to working with law enforcement and the immigrant community to take common-sense steps.
Well…hard to know what that statement really says. I guess she’s saying that she doesn’t want to lose any votes, and so she MIGHT give out drivers licenses.
Not exactly a profile in courage.
What kind of common sense steps?
That really doesn’t make a whole lot sense to me, Doug. What was the benefit of waiting for the Feds to act other than it would have solved the problem without her having to take the heat for taking a stand on a controversial issue?
…
did it occur to the AG that Congress wouldn’t be passing an immigration reform bill? Since the issue hasn’t gone anywhere in DC since 2006, the year she was elected to her current job, let’s just say the rationale rings false.
The last thing I/we need is a pissing contest between Steve and Martha on BMG. Barf.
What is wrong with these people? I will tell you. The average Massachusetts voter (is an Independent) and does not really give a rat’s a$$ about immigrants and driving licenses. They/we are worried about their/our jobs, mortgages, health, children’s education and elderly parents.
Get a grip. Get real and don’t come here with low-hanging fruit for the progressive minority to feast upon. I spent time today with people who have deep, chronic problems to which politicians have no answers, solutions or even band-aids.
Come back when you have something close to a vision for the future of the Commonwealth and the steps to get us there.
between Steve and Martha – its Steve and Doug.
PS I imagine you drove today to take care of your important issues and to the 100K+ undocumented workers in Massachusetts it just as important to them to drive with a license and insurance.
Low hanging fruit that is so obvious to the majority of voters, that it is time for the politicians to hurry up and take care of this so we can move on to tackling other more difficult problems.
Pissing contest is between Steve and candidate Martha Coakley aka Doug.
How will we ever handle that? It’s never happened before.
Pot shots…..sophomoric whiny pseudo challenges……no, thanks. I think too highly of BMG to see it used as a dress rehearsal for any candidates draft stump ads.
The high-road would have been a post wherein candidate Grossman (whose own name is on the post) scribed his vision for the immediate correction to this gap in public policy that defeats many purposes (economic, safety, immigration reform, etc.). Along with the steps that he proposes while his opponents have not – despite being in a position to do so (MC) have failed to enact progress.
Addressing the letter to (his opponent) the AG of the Commonwealth of MA and then posting it here is weird. It’s like 8th grade communication…..pass the note.
Re-read the letter and consider the context……ah cripes, again.
Our Massachusetts courts system gets all too many a case because people not formally citizens (unlike us) satisfied their human need to drive a car. If I were a paid prosecutor myself, I would rather go after fraudsters who put up a web page misleading people who dig into their wallet hoping to donate to our defeated Alex Sink than throw the book at some brasileira who drove across towns just to see their dentist.
For those who, like me, had no idea who or what Alex Sink is – she’s a Florida Democrat who ran for Governor and lost to Rick Scott.
in a special election for an open U.S. House seat. It’s a swing-y district (GOP congressman since 1983, but Obama took it by a point in 2012). Sink had name recognition and a fundraising advantage but lost by about a point and a half.
There was a post on here a while back about the Republicans putting up webpages that could mislead Democratic donors into thinking they were donating to Democratic campaigns, including Alex Sink’s.
That’s not a good sign for 2014
That means it’s been a GOP Congressional district for 31 years. I wouldn’t read too much into the loss (yet).
I think we need to read a lot into the loss. And we better read it quickly. Obama won the district. The Republican is, well, a real Republican–41 year old lobbyist, recently divorced, who campaigned with his 26 year old girlfriend. Apparently the guy campaigns in expensive suits and Gucci shoes. He also screwed up all manner of times during the election on stuff that should matter (read: the issues). In other words, beatable. But Sink lost in large part because of Obamacare. This tells me that it’s at least possible that the Republicans are going to be able to nominate Neanderthal, farm animals in swing districts and still win. That is a major problem and recipe for losing many more seats in Congress and being in the minority in the Senate. One way to start to combat this is to have the President (who I love and worked for and supported from the outset) get off of his ass and start engaging in a national dialogue designed to help Democrats win—explain why Obamacare is good for this country and why policies put in place by Democrats in Congress and the president saved this country from financial ruin. He might talk about 40+ months of consecutive private sector job growth; he might talk about the stock market (6800? to 16000); he might talk about the JOBS act; he might talk about deficit reduction; he might talk about an economy that has improved dramatically overall; he might talk about Democrats’ plans to increase the minimum wage and extend unemployment benefits; he might talk about an unemployment rate that’s come down from 10% to 6.5%. In other words, put together a comprehensive sales pitch that will help the Democrats nationally. He might also talk about how the Republicans have no plans, and have fought progress every step of the way. Come on Mr. President, take the fight to them. You’ve done it before and you can do it again.
He’s done it before, reluctantly, kicking and screaming, to save his own ass but never for the midterms. I hope he proves me wrong, but we are looking at a guy who knows he’s a lame duck, has made peace with that, and is now running out the clock.
I’m hoping the guy who got 135 million votes in two national elections might show up with a sales pitch.
Bill Clinton showed him how it’s done.
Bill Clinton is an electrifying speaker who has a long record of helping Democratic candidates win close elections.
Barack Obama could do worse than learning the post-Presidency ropes from Bill Clinton.
if the Republicans run tons of ads against it and the Democratic candidate says practically nothing to defend it. That’s the lesson I’d take. I would prefer to see Obama with a net positive approval rating before I’d want him visible in this campaign.
You’re right; Sink ran from Obamacare in large part. It didn’t work. I think Obama needs to focus on a national message of accomplishment that will resonate in moderate districts. He will not be “(in)visible” even if he or the Democratic candidates want him to be.
Focus on mitigating loses in 14′ hoping a Hillary wave gets us the majorities next time in 16′. Very dumb and optimistic. The right prevents the left from governing when the left is in charge, and then blames the ‘do nothing’ government for everything bad that happens, then we run insisting we will also cut government and trim the sails, and then the cycle repeats.
They are well on their way to being a permanent opposition party and we have to start moving left with the country before we are left behind.
Then, after he showed how to do it, they pushed him out and went back to triangulating. Shitty strategy indeed.
Jimc’s right. The district’s been Republican for three decades, and this district was redrawn (thanks, 2010) to remove downtown St. Pete’s Dems. GOPer Bill Young used to win by 20 points even when the district was more Dem-leaning than today. With huge turnout in a targeted district in a swing state, Obama took it by 1 point. I’d expect midterm or special election turnout, then, to be +2 or so for the Republicans.
Not a big deal, but it does highlight our need to turn out all those Democratic voters who don’t show up if it’s not a Presidential year. I also see a lesson in her failure to inspire the base with centrist, bi-partisan rhetoric.
She did run away from Obamacare in defiance of the DCCC order to run for it. I suspect a status quo with some outlying GOP losses in the House, but not enough to take a majority. I expect us to have a smaller Senate majority, but couldn’t predict where the losses were to occur. My guess is Pryor is done, and we lose the WV open seat. IA, MI, MT, Landrieu in LA, should hold. I have high expectations for Nunn and Grimes, excellent candidates who will be facing toxic GOP nominees, but the demographics are still going to be against them, my guess is both are hoping to score well enough to be viable in 2016 when black and youth turnout will be a lot higher. Too close to call. And polling has been all over the place for SD, and it’s hard to tell what factor Pressler will have and who he takes more votes from.
And as I’ve said elsewhere, Cutler in ME shoulda taken on Collins instead of spooling the Dems for LePage.
Is this the best you got against Martha Steve?
And read Doug’s answer Coakley supporters and really ask yourself if I haven’t been wrong that nobody knows how to give straight answers over there. They are running their campaign from the 2004 ‘take no strong stance’ DNC playbook and seem to have forgotten that progressives can and should win in Massachusetts.
at least as to the second paragraph. Like the post the other week about candidates’ responses to the Progressive Mass. questionnaires, this leaves me with the distinct sense of an evasive campaign with few core liberal principles. It seems like they’re just trying to run out the clock to September, which reminds me of… Oh, forget it.
I’m doing my best to resist temptation and adhere to my solemn pledge.
before he…….
And Grossman just wrote the GOP’s anti-Grossman commercial.
that the people of this state will be open to discussing the perfectly reasonable public safety concerns raised in his post.
This post mortum article about Congressman Bill Young and his two families is crazy and fascinating:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/bill-youngs-first-family-emerges-to-tell-their-story/2159685
Daily Kos has a breakdown of the Sink special election. Bottom line: low turnout, as usual, in Democratic precincts, higher in Republican ones. We have to start getting people to show up for off-year elections. Maybe November will be better than a special in March.
Carried it with quite a bit of commentary reflecting the statements above. GOP district…..2 points…..special election……not a bellweather…..not even a ringer.
Jolly-Sink quirky competitor last names…..maybe we could run a contest on oddest-unique last name pairings in political contests………hey, for a slow news day?
“I am going to be as middle-of-the-road as I can be because I believe it will make me more electable in a general election against Charlie Baker. However, if I feel threatened by progressives to the point where I might lose the primary, I will moderate my positions accordingly. But, only in a way that maintains as much wiggle room as possible so that I can get back to the middle if need be.”
And that’s why she’s not my candidate.
represents a clear lack of skill as a politician.
A more skilled politician is able to position herself without making it look as if she is positioning herself.
…wants to pretend he just learned this.
Epic fail, Stevie.
Yes, it was a lame attack but “epic fail”, no.
Of course the point of the attack is not that Grossman didn’t know about this but the rest of us didn’t. I know that I didn’t remember Coakley’s position on this issue.
Coakley’s lame official response is just as much an “epic fail”. If Coakley wants to really connect with the voters she has to stop interacting with the public through press releases that sound like they were written by corporate lawyers.
How many people does this really affect?
If someone is undocumented but needs a driver’s license, why do they need it? If they’re going to a job or a school, shouldn’t there be some documentation about them? Maybe this is one step to legalization.
You asked a good question, so I did a search and discovered this link that says there are 160,000 undocumented workers in Massachusetts. The article says that this approach has been tried in other states and has resulted in a reduced rate of uninsured drivers and motor vehicle fatalities.
has a good point that this could be an incentive (positive step) toward citizenship……AND I would suggest could also bring added-value as it protects all citizens.
Why do we assume that this is automatically a progressive measure rather than having progressive, conservative, and neutral arguments in its favor?
I don’t know enough about it to have a position, but there was just an article last week in the NY Times about how advocates of a similar law passed in California are finding that many undocumented immigrants do not trust the system and are afraid that the government will use the licenses to track and deport them. The CA licenses will also look different from regular licenses and they are afraid they will be used to stigmatize them.
Also note that undocumented immigrants can get SNAP benefits if they are parents of a native-born child. So having their pictures on file with the RMV may also be designed to benefit the recent anti-fraud initiative at DTA which is using RMV photos for EBT cards.
Those aren’t the reasons Coakley states, she opposed it when she was running as a center-right law and order AG and is now punting it to the feds without taking a stance on the merits.
If there was a progressive opposition to be had surely the progressive candidate would’ve taken it. She didn’t. 04 Kerry was a bolder candidate.