The assault on sanity continues in Virginia’s newly 100% Democrat controlled state government.
While they’re still working overtime to restrict the Second Amendment rights of their citizens – or proposing restricting their First Amendment rights – they are going out of their way to make sure non-citizens aren’t inconvenienced.
As the Daily Caller’s Jason Hopkins reports: Virginia lawmakers passed legislation in both chambers of the state legislature that would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses.
HB 1211 and SB 34 both passed their respective chambers Tuesday, the last day legislation could cross over to the other chamber for consideration.
State senators passed SB 34 by a margin of 22-18. The Senate version, which Democratic state Sen. Scott Surovell introduced, permits illegal aliens living in the state to obtain a standard driver’s license, but with certain conditions. The undocumented applicants must prove they’ve filed an income tax return, and the cards would also include text stating that it’s not a valid form of ID for federal, voting or public benefit purposes.
The House version, which Democratic Del. Kathy Tran introduced, passed by a margin of 57-42 and is largely similar to its Senate counterpart. The House bill, however, goes further by calling for the IDs to be conventional driver’s licenses.
We’ve all sat through DMV purgatory before, and it goes without saying that adding more people to those eligible for their services will only make things worse. After New York’s policies allowing illegals to go into effect I documented the massive lines that resulted in – simply by looking up people complaining about them on twitter who were posting photos of the endless lines. When I checked back two weeks later NY’s DMVs remained overwhelmed – and I wouldn’t be surprised if some still are.
Depressingly, this is a continuation of a larger trend. Not long-after New York began granting illegal licenses, New Jersey’s governor signed similar legislation into law. Virginia would be but the fifteenth state that gives illegals driver’s licenses.
Some Republican leaders have taken notice, such as Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who introduced a bill that would punish states that grant licence’s to illegals. It’ll be interesting to see what arguments Democrats manage to muster against it. That comes after the DHS announced that they were investigating and reviewing these kind of laws earlier this year.
While horrible policy, this ironically does disprove the liberal argument that requiring a photo ID to vote constitutes “voter disenfranchisement,” particularly of minorities. That certainly hasn’t been the case with this form of photo ID.
