NEWS

February 23, 2008 - bill would tighten drivers license requirements

By Victoria Wallack
Statehouse Reporter
Village Soup

AUGUSTA (Feb 23): Legislators are considering a bill that would require people to prove they live in Maine before being given a driver’s license here, but they are skirting the more contentious issue of whether the state Department of Motor Vehicles should ask applicants to show they are in the country legally.

Republicans see it as an issue that could help them win more legislative seats in the upcoming November election, and Maine’s reputation as an “easy” state in which to get a license made the national news last month when CNN’s Lou Dobbs lambasted Democratic Gov. John Baldacci and Secretary of State Matt Dunlap.

“He said the governor and secretary of state in Maine are idiots. He’s never spoken to me, and I’m not sure he’s ever seen our policies,” Dunlap said, but commentators like Dobbs and those on talk radio are whipping up sentiment around the issue.

Dunlap, who helped draft the law currently before the Transportation Committee that would require proof of state residency for license applicants, said figuring out whether someone is an illegal alien is not in his purview.

“I know the debate about immigrants has been raging for a long time," he said. "We are not an immigration agency and have no authority to be so. That is the purview of the Coast Guard, Homeland Security and the State Department.”

Dunlap added that tightening controls on proof of Maine residency — requiring a utility bill, rental agreement or even an affidavit signed by a landlord or boarding house owner if bills don’t come to individual tenants — would solve the most egregious problems.

Those problems first came to light, Dunlap said, when investigators found immigrants were being shuttled up to Maine from New York City to get driver’s licenses because of the state’s lax residency rules.

“There was a federal investigation about, for want of better terms, mules that were bringing people in vans to Maine to get driver's licenses,” Dunlap said, because they could then easily exchange those licenses for ones in their home state, where the rules are stricter.

Dunlap said the scam was possible because of interstate agreements that allow people to take their Maine license and trade it in for a New York license “with no questions asked.”

While Dunlap said that having a Maine residency requirement will solve “95 percent of the problem,” critics are focusing on the state’s loose standards around illegal aliens.

Maine requires either a Social Security number or letter of rejection from the Social Security Office to get a license, but does no further checking. If a person does not have a Social Security number, and presents a “certificate of ineligibility” form from the Social Security Office, they are issued a placeholder number by the state of Maine in the form of 999-99-9999.

While only 2,700 such numbers are on file in the state — or as Dunlap said, “1/25th of 1 percent” of all licenses issued — the practice leaves the state vulnerable to fraud, critics say.

“INS officials estimate there are currently 12-20 million illegal aliens living in the United States, and more are crossing our borders every day,” Republican congressional candidate Dean Scontras testified before the Transportation Committee last week. “Maine’s current policy encourages these individuals to come here and obtain valid Maine driver’s licenses using the uniform Social Security number 999-99-9999.”

Sen. Paula Benoit, R-Sagadahoc, also testified in favor of more stringent checks on a person’s legal immigration status, saying the residency requirement is just a first step.

“I support this bill, but it doesn’t go quite far enough for me,” she said. “Residency does not prove somebody does not live here illegally.”

The Maine Civil Liberties Union opposes even a residency requirement because it could hurt the homeless or victims of domestic violence, who either don’t have or don’t want to reveal their local addresses.

“We think that even undocumented immigrants should be entitled to a driver’s license,” if they’ve passed the driver’s test, said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the MCLU. “Driver's licenses should be just that — a process to promote driving skills, and not a replacement for a citizenship and residency document.”

The Transportation Committee will meet Feb. 28 to vote on whether to recommend the residency requirement to the full Legislature.