Although Gov. John Kitzhaber claims that Measure 88 will promote insured driving among people who can’t prove they’re legally in the country, the lax requirements and glaring omissions of the bill seem tailored to accommodate illegal immigration in the guise of safety. It neither guarantees insured driving nor prevents the driver card from being used as identification.
For instance, Kitzhaber says Measure 88 “requires” applicants to get insurance, but David House, of DMV Public Affairs, contends bluntly: Liability insurance is not a requirement for driving privileges … including the proposed driver card that is under SB 833.
The devil is in the details. Applicants may get a card without buying insurance by testing in someone else’s insured car, (as do most 16-year-olds). The state can’t know if the applicant will drive an insured car afterward or cancel a policy if he has one.
State Rep. Kim Thatcher recalls that enthusiasts of driver permits for illegal immigrants warned against ending their driving privilege because they assumed it would increase uninsured driving. However, they accidentally proved their opposition’s point by initiating periodic ODOT reviews. The rate of uninsured accidents stayed the same between 2007, (the last year of driving privileges) and 2013.
This suggests the number of uninsured drivers stayed the same too. New Mexico noticed that its non-compliance rate rose slightly to 24 percent after it began issuing licenses to illegal aliens in 2003. It rose to 26 percent, the second highest in the nation, between 2004 and 2009. Tennessee also tried and canceled such permits.
If the state meant to ensure mandatory collision policies why did they allow such a flaw in SB 833? Even the official Yes on 88 flier doesn’t mention an insurance requirement. That hasn’t stopped various Measure 88 proponents from claiming new permitees must comply, but applicants already know that obeying the law is optional.
Another flaw in the driver card is its potential as identification. The bill lists several acceptable cases for ID but prohibits almost nothing, a loophole that could endanger the public now that Transportation Safety Administration’s spokesperson, Nico Melendez, said the TSA will accept the card as ID for air travel.
The federal REAL ID Act also requires a driver’s license “equivalent” to look different from the original and warn that it cannot be used for federal ID. Instead, the new card is nearly identical to our driver’s license except for the word “card” on a purple stripe instead of the word “license” on a blue stripe. It carries no warning, because the Legislature voted to ignore the federal Real ID Act in 2009.
The ID problem started even before the original bill passed the Legislature, when an ACLU affiliated lawyer named David Chaimov submitted his interpretation to the Secretary of State’s office about the allegedly narrow uses of the card without highlighting its potential use as identification. Ellen Rosenblum added the ACLU report to her formal summary.
The driver card is exploitable as designed and defined, and not only against unwitting bureaucrats and cashiers. Given that Mohammed Atta entered the U.S. legally and used his valid driver’s license to commit a 911 hijacking, would we assure the misuse of a nearly identical version of our ID granted for illegal presence? Will the duplicity, vague restrictions, and its acceptance by the TSA create more dangerous results than a bureaucratic mess?
Given its flaws, the card seems to be an attempt to protect the status quo instead of to guard the integrity of our driver’s license/ID. The state seems to be responding to pressure from unionized state bureaus that depend on a growing client base, coupled with demands from employers and ethnic organizers. The welfare of relatively quiet citizens, by contrast, must seem easier to ignore.
In November voters must decide if the illusion of safer law-breaking contrived by various special interests is an acceptable excuse for the Oregon driver card. Voting no on Measure 88 draws a line in the sand.
— Lyneil Vandermolen is a board member of Oregonians for Immigration Reform. She lives in Powell Butte.