Congress finally acts: law will require Washington State to use common sense with driver's licenses...

And require proof of citizenship and/or immigration status... and about time, too.

Forty other states are already smart enough to do this. Since the democrats feel they've locked up the illegal alien vote, they refused to requiire proof of citizenship to register to vote during the last legislative session, which will lead to this irony:

You'll have to prove your citizenship to drive... but not to vote.

Sheesh.





Tuesday, May 3, 2005

Congressional proposal would require states to verify citizenship
By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Our roads could become more dangerous, and the state Licensing Department would find itself doing the work of immigration officials should Congress pass a House plan to make all 50 states verify the citizenship of driver's license applicants.

The driver's license issue is part of a bill that would pay for continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A range of issues remain unresolved, including how much more money to spend on border security.

But the driver's license part of it dips directly into the wallets and hip pockets of the country's entire driving population.

If it worries state licensing officials, it is repugnant to organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which abhors the concept as a giant leap toward a national ID card.

"Although in some hyper-technical sense this would not be a national system with a single database, it would link the databases of all 50 states, which would create the same effect," ACLU privacy expert Doug Klunder said yesterday.

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