It has been an intense week in the House chamber of our state Legislature: razor-thin voting margins, unprecedented parliamentary procedures, three calls of the House for three straight days.
The politically and emotionally charged issue of giving driver’s licenses to foreign nationals was at the heart of last week’s events. It is an issue that has been brewing since Gov. Susana Martinez began campaigning for office.
I heard voters voice similar concerns during my re-election campaign. I am as concerned as anyone about New Mexico being a staging ground for illegal immigration.
The stories I have heard from my constituents, read in the paper or watched on the news are chilling.
That is why I introduced House Bill 346 to help curb criminals using our existing licensing requirements to commit fraud. It was one of three that was discussed and deliberated during a proper House committee hearing. It was ultimately tabled because of textual issues within the bill. The other two bills saw the same fate.
I was confident that I would be able to revisit my bill, address the issues brought by the committee and present a stronger bill that would withstand scrutiny from the House, Senate and governor.
Unfortunately, I never got that chance. A rare procedural move “blasted” one of the other two tabled bills onto the House floor where lengthy discussion ensued.
Our floor debate on this issue was respectfully heated on both sides, but parliamentary maneuvering by both parties made the process frustrating.
I had major problems with some of the specifics of my colleague Rep. Andy Nuñez’s House Bill 78, and like many of my colleagues, I welcomed discussing those concerns. My name was on the board for hours to speak on the specifics of the bill, but time ran out before I got the chance, and the vote was called.
If I had been given the opportunity to engage my colleague on the floor, I would have asked him his reasoning for voting for the original 2003 legislation that he now wanted to entirely reverse.
What about the public safety issue? Has that magically gone away in eight years, the reason that I presume he voted for the 2003 bill? What of the notion of having uninsured and undocumented foreign nationals driving their children to school, driving themselves to work — in short, being unleashed on our highways without the ability to get insurance?
I was not given an opportunity to have that discourse and had to make the decision after over six hours of deliberation. I voted with my convictions. I made what I felt was a hard, responsible decision.
The heart of the matter was that House Bill 78 was well-intentioned, to be sure, but seriously flawed.
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For example, if HB 78 were to pass, the husbands, wives and children of many of our state’s foreign-born engineers at our national labs would be at immediate risk of being deported. HB 78 would also add a burden to our senior citizens: New Mexico residents older than 65 who wish to exchange their driver’s license for an ID card would be lumped into the same category as “illegal immigrants” and would have to go through the same bureaucratic steps to prove their legitimate residency.
The administrative cost of HB 78 remains unknown, and it still does not place us in full compliance with the Real ID Act of 2005.
On that day, I voted for a floor amendment proposed that I felt was far superior to HB 78. It narrowly failed in a 36-34 vote. Offered as bipartisan compromise by Democratic Floor Leader Ken Martinez (D-Grants), it incorporated elements from several driver’s license bills introduced this session, including my own HB 346 and Republican Bill Rehm’s (R-Albuquerque) HB 261.
This compromise bill would have revoked falsely issued driver’s licenses. It would also have made it a third-degree felony for an MVD employee to issue a fraudulent license, and it would mandate a two-year expiration for any license issued to a foreign national.
Since the vote, I have borne a great deal of criticism as a result of my vote.
It is somehow assumed that I embrace the status quo and that I do not feel a legislative remedy is warranted. I have received e-mails and letters from impassioned constituents questioning my vote and political stance. I do not take my constituents’ input lightly. However, I am committed to the public’s safety and clamping down on fraud.
Immigration policy is a federal issue, and we all can acknowledge our federal government has not met this responsibility.
Hence we find ourselves, along with other states, grappling with the results of this abdication of responsibility. The good news in New Mexico is that there is still time in our legislative session for both parties (and the lone DTS) to come together and send a smart and effective driver’s license bill to Gov. Martinez to sign.
Rep. Bill O’Neill represents New Mexico’s 15th district.
