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Post Office Box 1147
▪
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
48 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Monday, February 21, 2022
Presidents' Day (formerly George
Washington's Birthday)
New Poll Shows Grad
Tax Losing Support
Driver's Licenses For Illegals On Fast Track
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
|
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With seven
months before voters go to the polls, Attorney
General Maura Healey and former Rep. Geoff Diehl
hold significant advantages with voters in their
parties, and Healey, a Democrat, is the clear
front-runner to succeed Gov. Charlie Baker, though
more than half the electorate has yet to choose a
candidate, according to a new poll.
Healey led
the field of Democrats and Republicans in the race
for governor with 29.2 percent support, according to
a
new poll commissioned by the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, followed by Diehl, a former
Republican state lawmaker, with 13.5 percent.
The poll
also attempted to gauge support for a question
moving toward the ballot in November that would
impose a surtax of 4 percent on all earned income
above $1 million. The MassFiscal poll found that
51.6 percent of voters oppose the proposed ballot
question, which is an outlier from other polls that
have found significant support for the wealth tax.
The poll
did not describe the income surtax in detail, but
rather told respondents it would "raise the income
tax on some high-income earners and middle-class
small businesses."
"I think
that's pretty damaging for the proponents of this
ballot question," [Paul Craney, of the Mass Fiscal
Alliance Foundation] said....
Sixty-three percent of Healey voters also said they
supported the income surtax ballot questions, while
28 percent are opposed. That's compared to the 92
percent of Diehl supporters who opposed the
question.
With a lot
of time between now and the November election,
[Advantage, Inc. pollster Jim Eltringham] described
the issue of how the revenue from a wealth tax gets
spent as an "emotional flashpoint" in the
electorate. When told that nothing would legally
bind the Legislature to spend the additional tax
revenue on education and transportation, 61.3
percent said that fact made them less likely to
support the question.
Over 60
percent of voters also said they were less likely to
support the surtax after being told the increase
would hit middle-class small businesses....
In a state
that President Joe Biden won in 2020 with 65.6
percent of the vote, the MassFiscal poll found that
the president's approval numbers had fallen to 51.7
percent with Massachusetts voters, including 77.2
percent of Democrats but only 46.8 percent of
unenrolled voters who approve of the job the
president is doing.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Poll Puts Healey, Diehl Ahead of
Pack and Doubts Surtax Support
MassFiscal Sees 'Pretty Damaging' Signs for
Millionaires Tax
Tuesday,
Feb. 22, 2022
TAX RELIEF
HEARING: Joint Committee on Revenue holds a hearing
on the nearly $700 million tax relief proposal that
Gov. Baker filed alongside his fiscal 2023 budget
proposal last month.
"The cost
of just about everything is going up, and these tax
breaks would help offset some of those costs for
families," the governor said last month. "From a
fiscal point of view, Massachusetts is in a very
strong financial position and able to offer this tax
relief while continuing to make big investments in
our people, our schools and our communities."
Baker's
proposal (H 4361) seeks to double tax credits for
dependents and child care, double the allowable
maximum for the senior circuit breaker property tax
credit, increase the cap on deductions for rent
payments from $3,000 to $5,000, cut the tax rate on
short-term capital gains from 12 percent to 5
percent, and to double the threshold at which the
estate tax kicks in to $2 million, with the tax only
applying to the value of estate above $2 million
rather than the whole amount.
The
governor also wants to raise the income threshold at
which people are required to file taxes to $12,400
for single filers, $18,650 for heads of households,
and $24,800 for joint filers in a move that would
save about 234,000 of the lowest-income taxpayers
$41 million annually.
Also on
the hearing docket is a tag-along bill (H 4362) that
Baker said "will modernize the Massachusetts' tax
administration rules and procedures, enabling the
Department of Revenue (DOR) to manage the state tax
system more efficiently to the benefit of
Massachusetts taxpayers."
The
outgoing governor's tax relief push comes as the
state is riding a wave of strong tax collections.
After raising its expected fiscal 2022 tax
collection target by $1.5 billion in January, DOR
reported earlier this month that collections are
running $1.45 billion above the revised targets.
Even after backing out what could be a temporary
revenue bump, the state is running $794 million
ahead of benchmarks.
The
Democrats that control the Legislature have been
largely unreceptive to Baker's previous tax relief
proposals but have said this latest package will get
a fair shake. In his filing letter, Baker pointed
out that "[s]everal of the ideas in this legislation
have been proposed in some form by members of the
Legislature from both parties." (Tuesday, 1 p.m.,
More Info)
State
House News Service
Friday, February 18, 2022
Advances - Week of Feb. 20, 2022
The House
passed legislation Wednesday that opens a pathway
for some undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's
licenses in Massachusetts, a move advocates say
would make roads safer for all motorists and
opponents argue rewards people for entering the
country illegally.
On a
120-36 vote, the House advanced the bill to the
Senate after hours of debate that divided
representatives on whether the legislation promotes
safe driving in Massachusetts or undermines legal
immigration.
Rep.
William Straus, co-chair of the Transportation
Committee, said the "narrowly drawn bill" would
protect public safety and addresses Gov. Charlie
Baker's concerns with the policy....
The bill
has drawn support from law enforcement groups in the
past including the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs
of Police Association, who endorsed the legislation
last session.
Rep.
Timothy Whelan (R-Brewster), a former state police
sergeant, said the bill "isn't a slam-dunk in the
world of law enforcement by any measure." He said
many in that realm have "serious concerns" when it
comes to the validity of a person's documentation.
"My family
came into this country from Ireland. I have no idea
what a certified birth certificate looks like from
County Cork where my family is from," he said from
the floor of the House. "Are we demanding too much
of our Registry of Motor Vehicle clerks? Are we
asking them to become experts in foreign
documentation and forgery detection? Are we
establishing bifurcated sets of requirements for
citizens and foreign nationals with legal presence
versus those here without legal presence?"
The bill
now heads to the Senate where Sen. Brendan Crighton
sponsors that branch's version. The bill also has a
supporter in Senate President Karen Spilka, who said
in a 2019 radio interview that she "believe[s] that
for public safety reasons, even just if you look at
it alone, we should pass it." ...
The House
passed the bill with a veto-proof margin despite
unanimous opposition from House Republicans, who
were joined by a handful of Democrats including
Reps. Mark Cusack of Braintree, Colleen Garry of
Dracut, and Patrick Kearney of Scituate, among
others....
A new
version the House Ways and Means Committee released
earlier this week added language to clarify that a
license or learner's permit applicant who does not
provide proof of lawful presence will not be not
automatically registered to vote under the state's
automatic voter-registration law.
An
unsuccessful amendment from Minority Leader Brad
Jones would have required the Registry of Motor
Vehicles to provide a driver's license holder's
information to any city or town clerk "seeking to
verify the identity and eligibility of any
individual using a Massachusetts license to vote or
to register to vote."
Jones
questioned why the Ways and Means Committee needed
to specifically clarify that a person who receives a
driver's license under the proposal is not
automatically registered to vote. The North Reading
Republican linked his concerns to Senate-backed
language that would allow voters to register on the
same day they cast a ballot, one of a number of
election reforms being ironed out by a House-Senate
conference committee.
Straus,
speaking in opposition to the amendment, said a
driver's license will never be an indication of
voter eligibility.
"That is
true, that has been true, that will be true," he
said. "This bill is not about voter eligibility or
someone attempting to register to vote, either at a
clerk's office, a municipal clerk's office, or
online when they get their license."
State
House News Service
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Immigrant License Bill
Clears House 120-36
Foreign Documents Would Be Allowed To Access
Driver's Licenses
The
movement to provide driver’s licenses for certain
illegal immigrants continues to gain momentum, as a
number of public-health professionals, business
leaders, advocates and lawmakers seek to make
Massachusetts the 17th state with such a law....
With its
passage, Massachusetts would join neighboring New
York and Connecticut, which have already enacted
similar laws....
But the
governor’s opposition represents a familiar and
longstanding roadblock....
And it’s
also a fact that legislative momentum might now
render this bill veto-proof.
But how do
you counter the argument that paving the way for
illegal immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses
simply provides another vehicle to promote their
legitimacy.
It would
seem to remove any incentive for those individuals
to take a legal route to residency in this state —
and ultimately citizenship in this country.
In short,
providing illegal immigrants driver’s licenses is a
one-way street, not conditioned on any commitment on
their part to change their parallel, undocumented
existence.
With a
legal immigration-path provision, we could support
this driver’s license bill.
Without
it, we can’t.
A Lowell
Sun editorial
Friday, February 4, 2022
Driver’s license for illegal
immigrants must be a 2-way street
Massachusetts is home to about 200,000 unauthorized
immigrants of driving age, and lawmakers finally
appear ready to let them to do something nearly all
of us take for granted: apply for a driver’s
license....
It has
never made sense to me that there should be such
apprehension about letting unauthorized immigrants
get a license to drive. No rational person thinks
that residents who entered the country without a
visa should be barred for that reason from applying
for a debit card, signing up for Netflix, or getting
a COVID vaccine. Why the endless furor over
authorizing them to take a road test and obtain a
driver’s license?
“Paving
the way for illegal immigrants to acquire driver’s
licenses simply provides another vehicle to promote
their legitimacy,” fumed the Lowell Sun in a recent
editorial. But that makes no sense. A driver’s
license doesn’t promote anything except public
safety and better traffic enforcement. With or
without a license, thousands of unauthorized
foreigners have no choice but to drive. Like
millions of their fellow Massachusetts residents,
many of them need to get to work, drop off their
kids at school, or shop for groceries.
Making it
possible for unauthorized immigrants to acquire a
driver’s license isn’t going to add “legitimacy” to
their immigration status. It isn’t going to have any
effect on their immigration status at all. What it
will do is ensure that they can be identified and
that they’ve passed a driving test. It will make
them considerably less likely to drive without
insurance or to flee from the scene of an accident.
Whatever you think of people who live in America
without proper immigration papers, do you want them
operating motor vehicles without proper “driving
papers” as well?
In a
column a couple months back, I cast a cold eye on
New York City’s newly passed ordinance granting
800,000 noncitizens the right to vote in municipal
elections. I argued against that decision on the
grounds that the right to vote is an explicit
function of citizenship, and that giving noncitizens
the ballot undermines the importance of citizenship
itself.
But
getting a driver’s license is as irrelevant to
citizenship as going to a doctor or getting $50 from
an ATM. For most adults in this country, driving is
a necessity. Nothing is gained, and a good deal is
lost, by preventing unauthorized immigrants from
doing so legally....
The
Boston Globe
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
What does immigration status have
to do with a driver's license?
by Jeff Jacoby
"There's
only one quarterback, only one person calling the
play. Now I am," Mariano said Wednesday....
This, of
course, was Mariano's way of explaining why after
years of circular debate the House this week for the
first time voted on legislation to allow
undocumented immigrants to obtain a Massachusetts
driver's license.
And it was
a slam dunk. (Pardon the mixed-sports metaphors.)
The 120-36
vote easily cleared the bar that would be needed to
overturn a potential gubernatorial veto, and this
should not be a surprise. Mariano knows how to
count, and whip, votes, and he's not one to leave
things to chance. Gov. Charlie Baker stopped short
of threatening a veto this week, and though he
insists he prefers the status quo on licensing,
House leaders believe there's a chance he could be
convinced to sign.
The bill
was sold by Democrats as a public safety measure
that would ensure more drivers have the training and
insurance to be on the roads. Some, but not all, law
enforcement leaders rallied behind the measure,
convinced that the documentation required of
applicants who can't otherwise prove legal status
would suffice.
The issue
is now on the Senate's plate, but already Mariano's
decision to fight for this legislation has spilled
beyond the confines of the State House to the 2022
campaign trail.
"The
proposal is meant to make it easier for illegal
aliens to live in our state, contrary to arguments
on the left it would do nothing at all to improve
road safety," said John Carey, a Republican
candidate for the open Cape & Islands district
attorney seat.
Every
Democrat running for governor supports the bill, and
every Republican opposes it....
Speaking
of rules, the State House will reopen next Tuesday
to the public, but Mariano and Senate President
Karen Spilka said if you're planning a visit be sure
to bring a mask and your vax card, or a negative
COVID test "from no more than one day before entry."
After
Spilka floated Feb. 22 as a reopening date last
week, the two leaders got together on Monday to
announce a mutual decision to reopen the doors to
the public after more than 700 days of being locked.
Just don't
ask them how it will all work. The policy seemed to
be taking shape on the fly, with questions about who
would enforce the vaccine mandate or remind visitors
to mask up met by crickets. What about children
under 5 who can't get a vaccine? "Sure," Mariano
said, unconvincingly after a long pause.
State
House News Service
Friday, February 18, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Open Says She
and He
Speaking
of rules, the State House will reopen next Tuesday
to the public, but [House Speaker] Mariano and Senate President
Karen Spilka said if you're planning a visit be sure
to bring a mask and your vax card, or a negative
COVID test "from no more than one day before entry."
After
Spilka floated Feb. 22 as a reopening date last
week, the two leaders got together on Monday to
announce a mutual decision to reopen the doors to
the public after more than 700 days of being locked.
Just don't
ask them how it will all work. The policy seemed to
be taking shape on the fly, with questions about who
would enforce the vaccine mandate or remind visitors
to mask up met by crickets. What about children
under 5 who can't get a vaccine? "Sure," Mariano
said, unconvincingly after a long pause.
State
House News Service
Friday, February 18, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Open
Says She and He
The State
House reopens to the general public at 9 a.m.
Tuesday but don't expect a swarm of activity on
Beacon Hill as the Legislature is taking another
break from formal sessions and the only hearings on
the docket will be held virtually, including one on
Gov. Baker's $700 million tax relief plan.
House and
Senate Democrats have even put their annual budget
hearings on a two-week hiatus that runs through next
week, when public schools across Massachusetts will
be closed. Massachusetts has a full-time Legislature
but for years lawmakers have positioned themselves
with a light school vacation week workload that
permits them to "spend time in the district," as
aides like to say, and beyond.
With the
reopening, the capitol will shed its designation as
the only one in the nation that has remained closed
so deep into the pandemic. The new normal under the
dome will mirror work arrangements elsewhere that
feature an uptick in in-person activity but a
continuation of remote work that appears here to
stay.
State
House News Service
Friday, February 18, 2022
Advances - Week of Feb. 20, 2022 |
|
On Wednesday the State
House News Service reported on a poll commissioned
and just released by Mass. Fiscal Alliance. Not surprisingly,
it indicated support for the sixth proposed graduated income
tax is less than the results released and touted by its tax-hike
proponents. Somehow, advocates of higher taxes seem to always
produce polls indicating widespread support for their looting of
others — then are swamped at the polls
when actual voters weigh in.
This isn't the first time, and likely it won't be
the last. As more voters become better educated about just
what this graduated income tax will do —
and won't do — I expect to see support
for it to erode further running up to the November election.
The News Service reported ("Poll Puts Healey, Diehl Ahead of
Pack and Doubts Surtax Support
—MassFiscal Sees 'Pretty Damaging' Signs for
Millionaires Tax"):
With seven
months before voters go to the polls, Attorney
General Maura Healey and former Rep. Geoff Diehl
hold significant advantages with voters in their
parties, and Healey, a Democrat, is the clear
front-runner to succeed Gov. Charlie Baker, though
more than half the electorate has yet to choose a
candidate, according to a new poll.
Healey led
the field of Democrats and Republicans in the race
for governor with 29.2 percent support, according to
a
new poll commissioned by the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, followed by Diehl, a former
Republican state lawmaker, with 13.5 percent.
The poll
also attempted to gauge support for a question
moving toward the ballot in November that would
impose a surtax of 4 percent on all earned income
above $1 million. The MassFiscal poll found that
51.6 percent of voters oppose the proposed ballot
question, which is an outlier from other polls that
have found significant support for the wealth tax....
Sixty-three percent of Healey voters also said they
supported the income surtax ballot questions, while
28 percent are opposed. That's compared to the 92
percent of Diehl supporters who opposed the
question.
With a lot
of time between now and the November election,
[Advantage, Inc. pollster Jim Eltringham] described
the issue of how the revenue from a wealth tax gets
spent as an "emotional flashpoint" in the
electorate. When told that nothing would legally
bind the Legislature to spend the additional tax
revenue on education and transportation, 61.3
percent said that fact made them less likely to
support the question.
Over 60
percent of voters also said they were less likely to
support the surtax after being told the increase
would hit middle-class small businesses....
In a state
that President Joe Biden won in 2020 with 65.6
percent of the vote, the MassFiscal poll found that
the president's approval numbers had fallen to 51.7
percent with Massachusetts voters, including 77.2
percent of Democrats but only 46.8 percent of
unenrolled voters who approve of the job the
president is doing.
Tomorrow the
Joint Committee on Revenue will hold a hearing
on Gov. Baker's $700 million tax relief proposal, filed along
with his fiscal 2023 budget
proposal last month. (See last week's CLT Update, "Gov's
Tax Relief Clashes With Legislature's New Taxes Schemes")
In its Advances for this week the State House News Service reported:
"The cost
of just about everything is going up, and these tax
breaks would help offset some of those costs for
families," the governor said last month. "From a
fiscal point of view, Massachusetts is in a very
strong financial position and able to offer this tax
relief while continuing to make big investments in
our people, our schools and our communities."
Baker's
proposal (H 4361) seeks to double tax credits for
dependents and child care, double the allowable
maximum for the senior circuit breaker property tax
credit, increase the cap on deductions for rent
payments from $3,000 to $5,000, cut the tax rate on
short-term capital gains from 12 percent to 5
percent, and to double the threshold at which the
estate tax kicks in to $2 million, with the tax only
applying to the value of estate above $2 million
rather than the whole amount.
The
governor also wants to raise the income threshold at
which people are required to file taxes to $12,400
for single filers, $18,650 for heads of households,
and $24,800 for joint filers in a move that would
save about 234,000 of the lowest-income taxpayers
$41 million annually....
The
outgoing governor's tax relief push comes as the
state is riding a wave of strong tax collections.
After raising its expected fiscal 2022 tax
collection target by $1.5 billion in January, DOR
reported earlier this month that collections are
running $1.45 billion above the revised targets.
Even after backing out what could be a temporary
revenue bump, the state is running $794 million
ahead of benchmarks.
The
Democrats that control the Legislature have been
largely unreceptive to Baker's previous tax relief
proposals but have said this latest package will get
a fair shake. In his filing letter, Baker pointed
out that "[s]everal of the ideas in this legislation
have been proposed in some form by members of the
Legislature from both parties."
I'd like to think the
Legislature — at least this one time to
the shock of abused taxpayers — will
show some gratitude and a rare willingness to part with a small
amount of the over-taxation bonanza the state has extracted over the
past two years. I would hope a majority of legislators will
agree to provide a relatively small refund in appreciation of their
taxpaying constituents' sacrifice. Sadly though, I've learned
to not hold my breath. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised
this time?
On Wednesday the
State
House News Service also reported ("Immigrant License Bill
Clears House 120-36—Foreign Documents Would Be Allowed To Access
Driver's Licenses"):
The House
passed legislation Wednesday that opens a pathway
for some undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's
licenses in Massachusetts, a move advocates say
would make roads safer for all motorists and
opponents argue rewards people for entering the
country illegally.
On a
120-36 vote, the House advanced the bill to the
Senate after hours of debate that divided
representatives on whether the legislation promotes
safe driving in Massachusetts or undermines legal
immigration....
Rep.
Timothy Whelan (R-Brewster), a former state police
sergeant, said the bill "isn't a slam-dunk in the
world of law enforcement by any measure." He said
many in that realm have "serious concerns" when it
comes to the validity of a person's documentation.
"My family
came into this country from Ireland. I have no idea
what a certified birth certificate looks like from
County Cork where my family is from," he said from
the floor of the House. "Are we demanding too much
of our Registry of Motor Vehicle clerks? Are we
asking them to become experts in foreign
documentation and forgery detection? Are we
establishing bifurcated sets of requirements for
citizens and foreign nationals with legal presence
versus those here without legal presence?"
The bill
now heads to the Senate where Sen. Brendan Crighton
sponsors that branch's version. The bill also has a
supporter in Senate President Karen Spilka, who said
in a 2019 radio interview that she "believe[s] that
for public safety reasons, even just if you look at
it alone, we should pass it." ...
The House
passed the bill with a veto-proof margin despite
unanimous opposition from House Republicans, who
were joined by a handful of Democrats including
Reps. Mark Cusack of Braintree, Colleen Garry of
Dracut, and Patrick Kearney of Scituate, among
others....
A new
version the House Ways and Means Committee released
earlier this week added language to clarify that a
license or learner's permit applicant who does not
provide proof of lawful presence will not be not
automatically registered to vote under the state's
automatic voter-registration law.
An
unsuccessful amendment from Minority Leader Brad
Jones would have required the Registry of Motor
Vehicles to provide a driver's license holder's
information to any city or town clerk "seeking to
verify the identity and eligibility of any
individual using a Massachusetts license to vote or
to register to vote."
Jones
questioned why the Ways and Means Committee needed
to specifically clarify that a person who receives a
driver's license under the proposal is not
automatically registered to vote. The North Reading
Republican linked his concerns to Senate-backed
language that would allow voters to register on the
same day they cast a ballot, one of a number of
election reforms being ironed out by a House-Senate
conference committee.
Straus,
speaking in opposition to the amendment, said a
driver's license will never be an indication of
voter eligibility.
"That is
true, that has been true, that will be true," he
said. "This bill is not about voter eligibility or
someone attempting to register to vote, either at a
clerk's office, a municipal clerk's office, or
online when they get their license."
On February 4 a
Lowell
Sun editorial ("Driver’s license for illegal
immigrants must be a 2-way street") had this to
say about that driver's license proposal:
The
movement to provide driver’s licenses for certain
illegal immigrants continues to gain momentum, as a
number of public-health professionals, business
leaders, advocates and lawmakers seek to make
Massachusetts the 17th state with such a law....
With its
passage, Massachusetts would join neighboring New
York and Connecticut, which have already enacted
similar laws....
But the
governor’s opposition represents a familiar and
longstanding roadblock....
And it’s
also a fact that legislative momentum might now
render this bill veto-proof.
But how do
you counter the argument that paving the way for
illegal immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses
simply provides another vehicle to promote their
legitimacy.
It would
seem to remove any incentive for those individuals
to take a legal route to residency in this state —
and ultimately citizenship in this country.
In short,
providing illegal immigrants driver’s licenses is a
one-way street, not conditioned on any commitment on
their part to change their parallel, undocumented
existence.
With a
legal immigration-path provision, we could support
this driver’s license bill.
Without
it, we can’t.
On the
other side of this issue, last Wednesday Boston Globe
columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote ("What does immigration status have
to do with a driver's license?"):
Massachusetts is home to about 200,000 unauthorized
immigrants of driving age, and lawmakers finally
appear ready to let them to do something nearly all
of us take for granted: apply for a driver’s
license....
It has never made sense to
me that there should be such apprehension about
letting unauthorized immigrants get a license to
drive. No rational person thinks that residents
who entered the country without a visa should be
barred for that reason from applying for a debit
card, signing up for Netflix, or getting a COVID
vaccine. Why the endless furor over authorizing
them to take a road test and obtain a driver’s
license?
“Paving the way for illegal
immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses simply
provides another vehicle to promote their
legitimacy,” fumed the Lowell Sun in a recent
editorial. But that makes no sense. A driver’s
license doesn’t promote anything except public
safety and better traffic enforcement. With or
without a license, thousands of unauthorized
foreigners have no choice but to drive. Like
millions of their fellow Massachusetts
residents, many of them need to get to work,
drop off their kids at school, or shop for
groceries.
Making it possible for
unauthorized immigrants to acquire a driver’s
license isn’t going to add “legitimacy” to their
immigration status. It isn’t going to have any
effect on their immigration status at all. What
it will do is ensure that they can be identified
and that they’ve passed a driving test. It will
make them considerably less likely to drive
without insurance or to flee from the scene of
an accident. Whatever you think of people who
live in America without proper immigration
papers, do you want them operating motor
vehicles without proper “driving papers” as
well?
In
a column a couple months
back, I cast a cold eye on New York City’s newly
passed ordinance granting 800,000 noncitizens
the right to vote in municipal elections. I
argued against that decision on the grounds that
the right to vote is an explicit function of
citizenship, and that giving noncitizens the
ballot undermines the importance of citizenship
itself.
But getting a driver’s
license is as irrelevant to citizenship as going
to a doctor or getting $50 from an ATM. For most
adults in this country, driving is a necessity.
Nothing is gained, and a good deal is lost, by
preventing unauthorized immigrants from doing so
legally....
Jeff Jacoby's argument
contributes to the progressive's relentless strategy of
incrementalism: Start small, snatch all you can get then
"normalize" it, come back
for the rest later until you have it all.
"Massachusetts is home to
about 200,000 unauthorized immigrants of driving age," he asserted.
Was this approximation reached before —
or after — the
over two million illegal immigrants who were apprehended
from over 140 countries that admittedly have come over the border
just since Joe Biden was installed as president, and have been
quietly relocated to cities around the country? Nobody knows
how many thousands more got through without apprehension and
simply disappeared into the nation's interior. Is this "about
200,000 unauthorized immigrants of driving age" estimation based on
the "11-20 million" illegal immigrants number that's been loosely
tossed around for a decade or more, as if illegal border crossings
ceased upon that number being reached?
If illegal immigrants
didn't break U.S. law by entering the country (and state) illegally
— if they had arrived legally as
was done for multi-generations since the nation's founding until
relatively recently — they would have
no problem attaining a driver's license and all other rights,
privileges, and amenities to which legal immigrants are
entitled. If immigrants respected the primary rule they would
not run into problems with the subsequent rules encountered.
If illegal immigrants
respected the law we citizens wouldn't be forced to confront whether
or not to empower them with drivers' licenses, the gateway document
to further forms of identification necessary to access other rights,
privileges, and amenities.
An amendment to the bill
by
House Minority Leader Brad Jones to help ensure this
would not lead to voter fraud was defeated. The State
House News Service reported ("Immigrant License Bill
Clears House 120-36—Foreign Documents Would Be Allowed To Access
Driver's Licenses"):
An
unsuccessful amendment from Minority Leader Brad
Jones would have required the Registry of Motor
Vehicles to provide a driver's license holder's
information to any city or town clerk "seeking to
verify the identity and eligibility of any
individual using a Massachusetts license to vote or
to register to vote."
Jones
questioned why the Ways and Means Committee needed
to specifically clarify that a person who receives a
driver's license under the proposal is not
automatically registered to vote. The North Reading
Republican linked his concerns to Senate-backed
language that would allow voters to register on the
same day they cast a ballot, one of a number of
election reforms being ironed out by a House-Senate
conference committee.
[Rep. William Straus,
co-chair of the Transportation Committee],
speaking in opposition to the amendment, said a
driver's license will never be an indication of
voter eligibility.
"That is
true, that has been true, that will be true," he
said. "This bill is not about voter eligibility or
someone attempting to register to vote, either at a
clerk's office, a municipal clerk's office, or
online when they get their license."
In a March 23, 2021 Wall
Street Journal column ("The
Democratic Party’s Dangerous Immigration Experiment"), Jason L.
Riley wrote:
. . . This is no way to run a
sovereign nation. Even Democratic administrations used to
understand that without a border there is no country. And
without security, there is no border. “We must say ‘no’ to
illegal immigration so we can continue to say ‘yes’ to legal
immigration,” said President Clinton, who responded to a spike
in illegal immigration in the early 1990s by asking Congress for
additional funding, among other things to “protect our borders,
remove criminal aliens, reduce work incentives for illegal
immigration [and] stop asylum abuse.”
These
problems, you might have noticed, are still with us, and in some
cases have worsened, yet the Democratic Party’s resolve seems
long gone. Replacing it is a growing belief on the political
left that people should be allowed to enter the U.S. on their
terms rather than ours, and that it is our collective
responsibility to take care of them if they can’t take care of
themselves. Milton Friedman said that open immigration and large
welfare states are incompatible, and today’s progressives in
Congress and the White House are eager to test that
proposition....
I would add progressive
Democrats in the Massachusetts Legislature as well.
To paraphrase Ronald
Reagan, If you want more of something, reward it; if you want less
of something, punish it.
The State
House News Service reported on Friday that tomorrow
the State House will finally reopen
— after almost two
years of being off-limits to the public. In
its
Weekly Roundup - Open
Says She and He the News Service reported:
Speaking
of rules, the State House will reopen next Tuesday
to the public, but [House Speaker] Mariano and Senate President
Karen Spilka said if you're planning a visit be sure
to bring a mask and your vax card, or a negative
COVID test "from no more than one day before entry."
After
Spilka floated Feb. 22 as a reopening date last
week, the two leaders got together on Monday to
announce a mutual decision to reopen the doors to
the public after more than 700 days of being locked.
Just don't
ask them how it will all work. The policy seemed to
be taking shape on the fly, with questions about who
would enforce the vaccine mandate or remind visitors
to mask up met by crickets. What about children
under 5 who can't get a vaccine? "Sure," Mariano
said, unconvincingly after a long pause.
In its
Advances - Week of Feb. 20, 2022
it added:
The State
House reopens to the general public at 9 a.m.
Tuesday but don't expect a swarm of activity on
Beacon Hill as the Legislature is taking another
break from formal sessions and the only hearings on
the docket will be held virtually, including one on
Gov. Baker's $700 million tax relief plan.
House and
Senate Democrats have even put their annual budget
hearings on a two-week hiatus that runs through next
week, when public schools across Massachusetts will
be closed. Massachusetts has a full-time Legislature
but for years lawmakers have positioned themselves
with a light school vacation week workload that
permits them to "spend time in the district," as
aides like to say, and beyond.
With the
reopening, the capitol will shed its designation as
the only one in the nation that has remained closed
so deep into the pandemic. The new normal under the
dome will mirror work arrangements elsewhere that
feature an uptick in in-person activity but a
continuation of remote work that appears here to
stay.
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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State House News
Service
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Poll Puts Healey, Diehl Ahead of Pack and Doubts Surtax
Support
MassFiscal Sees 'Pretty Damaging' Signs for Millionaires Tax
By Matt Murphy
With seven months before voters go to the polls, Attorney
General Maura Healey and former Rep. Geoff Diehl hold
significant advantages with voters in their parties, and
Healey, a Democrat, is the clear front-runner to succeed
Gov. Charlie Baker, though more than half the electorate has
yet to choose a candidate, according to a new poll.
Healey led the field of Democrats and Republicans in the
race for governor with 29.2 percent support, according to a
_new poll_ commissioned by the Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance, followed by Diehl, a former Republican state
lawmaker, with 13.5 percent.
https://www.statehousenews.com/content/docs/2022/02-16MassFiscalPollToplines.pdf
More than 52 percent of voters surveyed, however, said they
did not know who they would vote for if the election were
held today.
"It's very clear to me at least that Diehl and Healey are
the candidates people are paying attention to the most at
this point," said Paul Craney, of the Mass Fiscal Alliance
Foundation.
The poll also attempted to gauge support for a question
moving toward the ballot in November that would impose a
surtax of 4 percent on all earned income above $1 million.
The MassFiscal poll found that 51.6 percent of voters oppose
the proposed ballot question, which is an outlier from other
polls that have found significant support for the wealth
tax.
The poll did not describe the income surtax in detail, but
rather told respondents it would "raise the income tax on
some high-income earners and middle-class small businesses."
"I think that's pretty damaging for the proponents of this
ballot question," Craney said.
The proposed ballot question would raise the income tax on
earnings after the first $1 million from 5 percent to 9
percent, generating an estimated $1.3 billion annually in
new revenue for the state that is supposed to be spent on
education and transportation.
Many previous polls have found strong support for the
concept advanced by Democratic lawmakers on Beacon Hill, and
the proponents pushed back on the MassFiscal Alliance poll
as a "smoke screen."
"The facts are that the Fair Share Amendment has earned
strong support in poll after poll after poll because
Massachusetts voters understand that our children need new
long-term investments in our schools. As families emerge
from the pandemic, they travel on roads, bridges and rails
that are increasingly in disrepair. Workers hoping for a new
career are painfully learning that our public colleges are
unaffordable for people just trying to get ahead," said the
Raise Up Coalition, a group that has been pushing for a tax
on millionaires for many years.
A poll conducted by the MassINC Polling Group in December
found 69 percent support for the surtax when voters were
told that it would apply to income over $1 million and help
fund transportation and education.
A similar poll conducted by UMass Amherst in March 2021 left
out the description for voters of how the money would be
spent, but found a similar level of support at 65 percent.
Advantage, Inc. pollster Jim Eltringham said the MassFiscal
survey left out a detailed description of the tax to
simplify the issue for voters, but chose to tell them it
would generally impact high-income households [and]
middle-class small businesses.
"Using the $1 million threshold, I do think there's a fair
amount of connotation when you start talking about it as a
millionaires tax and you conjure images of top hats and
monocles," Eltringham said.
The Raise Up Coalition actually relied on polling when
deciding on the $1 million threshold, which proved more
popular than lower income ceilings.
Craney said that perhaps future polls conducted by his group
will be "more direct."
"Our struggle with these poll question is to try to deliver
something that is as easy to understand as possible and if
you get too far down in the weeds it's harder to connect
with people," Craney said.
Rather than poll the Democratic and Republican primaries
with voters likely to participate in each of those September
contests, the MassFiscal poll put all candidates in the same
pool and asked voters to choose.
Healey polled the strongest among Democrats with 46 percent
support compared to 1.9 percent for Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz
and 1.9 percent for Harvard professor Danielle Allen, who
announced Tuesday she was dropping out of the race. Among
Republicans, Diehl had 27.1 percent support to 12.3 percent
for Healey, while the other Republican in the race, Wrentham
businessman Chris Doughty, had just 2.5 percent support
within his own party and 1.7 percent overall.
Unenrolled voters, who make up the largest voting bloc in
Massachusetts and were critical to Baker's success in the
past two gubernatorial elections, also broke for Healey with
23 percent saying they would support the attorney general
compared to 16.3 percent for Diehl. Chang-Diaz and Doughty
both had 2.4 percent support among independents, and Allen
registered just 1.1 percent support.
Overall, 52.4 percent of voters said they were undecided,
including 46.7 percent of Democrats, 57.4 percent of
Republicans and 54.7 percent of independents.
The poll was conducted by Virginia-based Advantage, Inc.,
whose website says it specializes in surveys for Republican
candidates and referendum questions. The survey of 750
voters was conducted Feb. 8-10 and had a margin of error of
3.5 percent.
The largest percentage of voters, or 22.7 percent,
identified jobs and the economy as the most important issue
to them as they consider candidates for governor, followed
by health care (11.7 percent), law enforcement and the rule
of law (11.3 percent), climate change (10.5 percent) and
taxes (10.1 percent).
Healey polled strongest among voters concerned over the
economy, climate change and health care, in that order,
while Diehl voters were most interested in jobs and the
economy, law enforcement and taxes.
Sixty-three percent of Healey voters also said they
supported the income surtax ballot questions, while 28
percent are opposed. That's compared to the 92 percent of
Diehl supporters who opposed the question.
With a lot of time between now and the November election,
Eltringham described the issue of how the revenue from a
wealth tax gets spent as an "emotional flashpoint" in the
electorate. When told that nothing would legally bind the
Legislature to spend the additional tax revenue on education
and transportation, 61.3 percent said that fact made them
less likely to support the question.
Over 60 percent of voters also said they were less likely to
support the surtax after being told the increase would hit
middle-class small businesses.
"If they went to the polls tomorrow, they would be carrying
a little anxiety about where the economy is going," Jim
said.
MassFiscal and Advantage also asked voters if they thought a
4 percent surtax was too high, too low or just right, and
64.9 percent said "too high," though the question stated
that this amounted to an 80 percent increase in taxes, which
is inaccurate because the higher rate would only apply to
earnings above and beyond the first $1 million of income.
In a state that President Joe Biden won in 2020 with 65.6
percent of the vote, the MassFiscal poll found that the
president's approval numbers had fallen to 51.7 percent with
Massachusetts voters, including 77.2 percent of Democrats
but only 46.8 percent of unenrolled voters who approve of
the job the president is doing.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Immigrant License Bill Clears House 120-36
Foreign Documents Would Be Allowed To Access Driver's
Licenses
By Chris Van Buskirk and Colin A. Young
The House passed legislation Wednesday that opens a pathway
for some undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses
in Massachusetts, a move advocates say would make roads
safer for all motorists and opponents argue rewards people
for entering the country illegally.
On a 120-36 vote, the House advanced the bill to the Senate
after hours of debate that divided representatives on
whether the legislation promotes safe driving in
Massachusetts or undermines legal immigration.
Rep. William Straus, co-chair of the Transportation
Committee, said the "narrowly drawn bill" would protect
public safety and addresses Gov. Charlie Baker's concerns
with the policy.
The bill (H 4461), he said, should not be viewed in terms of
"the failures of federal policy" around immigration but
through the lens of local roadway safety for all drivers and
for law enforcement. The Mattapoisett Democrat referred to a
conversation he said he previously had with Baker.
"The governor said -- and I'll quote him because the words
meant a lot to me at the time. I've read them a lot and they
formed, as I said, the touchstone in the primary documents
security provision presented to you and I think is basically
why it merits your support today -- Governor Baker said, 'My
problem with giving licenses to people who are undocumented
is just that, there's no documentation to back up the fact
that they are who they say they are,'" Straus said.
The bill, Straus said, meets "the Baker standard" when it
comes to strict requirements around the documentation needed
to prove a person's identity and obtain a driver's license.
Proponents say the measure ensures all drivers in
Massachusetts are licensed and trained to operate motor
vehicles while opponents argue it allows undocumented people
to more easily live in the state illegally. As drafted by
the House, if the law were to make it through the Senate and
signed by the governor, it would take effect on July 1,
2023.
The bill has drawn support from law enforcement groups in
the past including the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs of
Police Association, who endorsed the legislation last
session.
Rep. Timothy Whelan (R-Brewster), a former state police
sergeant, said the bill "isn't a slam-dunk in the world of
law enforcement by any measure." He said many in that realm
have "serious concerns" when it comes to the validity of a
person's documentation.
"My family came into this country from Ireland. I have no
idea what a certified birth certificate looks like from
County Cork where my family is from," he said from the floor
of the House. "Are we demanding too much of our Registry of
Motor Vehicle clerks? Are we asking them to become experts
in foreign documentation and forgery detection? Are we
establishing bifurcated sets of requirements for citizens
and foreign nationals with legal presence versus those here
without legal presence?"
The bill now heads to the Senate where Sen. Brendan Crighton
sponsors that branch's version. The bill also has a
supporter in Senate President Karen Spilka, who said in a
2019 radio interview that she "believe[s] that for public
safety reasons, even just if you look at it alone, we should
pass it."
Spilka issued a statement Wednesday after the bill cleared
the House.
"As the granddaughter of immigrants, I have been a longtime
supporter of the idea behind the Work and Family Mobility
Act," she said. "I know that there are many Senators who
support it as well, so I am excited to see progress is being
made on this measure, because individuals and families
deserve to feel safe, and drivers' licenses for all
qualified state residents is good for our economy and public
safety. As the bill now heads to the Senate, I very much
look forward to having further discussions with our
membership on this issue."
Baker has previously said he is opposed to the idea of
issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants but
this week passed up a chance to telegraph that he would veto
the bill if it reaches his desk.
The governor reiterated his support for "the current
position" and said that while he tends to be cautious about
commenting about legislation that hasn't been finalized,
"we've made our position pretty clear that we're pretty
happy with where we are."
The House passed the bill with a veto-proof margin despite
unanimous opposition from House Republicans, who were joined
by a handful of Democrats including Reps. Mark Cusack of
Braintree, Colleen Garry of Dracut, and Patrick Kearney of
Scituate, among others.
The proposal allows those without proof of lawful residence
in the United States -- including people ineligible for a
Social Security number -- to apply for a license if they
have at least two supplemental documents proving their
identity, birth date, and Massachusetts residency.
One document can be a valid, unexpired foreign passport or
consular identification while the other could be a valid,
unexpired driver's license from any U.S. state or territory,
an original or certified copy of a birth certificate, a
valid, unexpired foreign national identification card, an
unexpired foreign driver's license, or a marriage
certificate or divorce decree issued in Massachusetts.
Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield) said people use
the term undocumented when referring to individuals who do
not have federal immigration status.
"But it does confuse the matter a little bit, because what
it means is they don't have federal status," Farley-Bouvier
said. "They have documents. They have documents, and indeed,
to be very clear, if they don't have the documents outlined
in this legislation, they cannot apply for a driver's
license."
A new version the House Ways and Means Committee released
earlier this week added language to clarify that a license
or learner's permit applicant who does not provide proof of
lawful presence will not be not automatically registered to
vote under the state's automatic voter-registration law.
An unsuccessful amendment from Minority Leader Brad Jones
would have required the Registry of Motor Vehicles to
provide a driver's license holder's information to any city
or town clerk "seeking to verify the identity and
eligibility of any individual using a Massachusetts license
to vote or to register to vote."
Jones questioned why the Ways and Means Committee needed to
specifically clarify that a person who receives a driver's
license under the proposal is not automatically registered
to vote. The North Reading Republican linked his concerns to
Senate-backed language that would allow voters to register
on the same day they cast a ballot, one of a number of
election reforms being ironed out by a House-Senate
conference committee.
Straus, speaking in opposition to the amendment, said a
driver's license will never be an indication of voter
eligibility.
"That is true, that has been true, that will be true," he
said. "This bill is not about voter eligibility or someone
attempting to register to vote, either at a clerk's office,
a municipal clerk's office, or online when they get their
license."
Advocates have been pushing legislators to pass the law for
years and have staged protests at the State House numerous
times. At one point in February 2020, activists with
Movimiento Cosechaorganized a hunger strike outside the
State House in a bid to push for legislative action on the
proposal.
Opponents of the measure have said the proposed law rewards
people who immigrate to the United States illegally. In a
statement to the News Service and MASSterList, Republican
gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl said he "would
immediately veto the bill" if it reached his desk as
governor.
"I strongly support legal immigration and wish to
incentivize those who wish to come here to do so in
compliance with the laws of the United States," he said.
"Therefore, I emphatically oppose our state giving driver's
licenses to those who have entered and remain in America
illegally."
Nineteen mayors and managers from Boston to Swampscott sent
a letter Tuesday to members of the House and Senate in
support of the bill, saying the legislation would greatly
improve road safety and increase the ease with which law
enforcement officers conduct their regular duties.
"Having a valid form of identification would allow these
community members – many of whom have been on the frontlines
of fighting COVID – to more easily access municipal
services, enter buildings where ID is checked, apply for a
library card, pick up needed medication from a pharmacy, or
even volunteer at their child's schools," the letter read.
The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center said within three
years of implementation an estimated 45,000 to 85,000
drivers -- regardless of immigration status -- would obtain
new licenses.
"In the first three years of implementation, the new law
could generate an additional $5 million from fees on new
licenses, car registrations, titles, inspections, and
others," MassBudget said in a press release from April 2021.
"In addition, the state could see an additional $5.1 million
per year from taxes on car-related purchases and motor
fuel."
— Katie Lannan contributed
reporting
The Lowell Sun
Friday, February 4, 2022
A Lowell Sun editorial
Driver’s license for illegal immigrants must be a 2-way
street
The movement to provide driver’s licenses for certain
illegal immigrants continues to gain momentum, as a number
of public-health professionals, business leaders, advocates
and lawmakers seek to make Massachusetts the 17th state with
such a law.
Backed by majorities in the Democrat-dominated House and
Senate, the Work and Family Mobility Act received a
favorable review by the Joint Committee on Transportation in
the last legislative session, but didn’t come to a final
vote, mainly due to uncertain support from leadership and
Gov. Charlie Baker’s unequivocal opposition.
According to a coalition of labor, business and public
health leaders who held a virtual news conference Tuesday,
the bill now has more co-sponsors than previous versions, as
well as strong support from some law enforcement agencies
and hundreds of health-care workers.
The group insists the proposal would ensure that tens of
thousands more drivers would commute safely and legally to
work, school and doctors’ visits, without fear of arrest
over their immigration status.
Several health-care providers and advocates said the bill’s
passage would also help address longstanding logistical
challenges faced by the state’s essential workers,
exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
With its passage, Massachusetts would join neighboring New
York and Connecticut, which have already enacted similar
laws.
Several police chiefs, sheriffs and Attorney General Maura
Healey support the proposal.
The bill would remove language in state law that blocks
residents who do “not have lawful presence in the United
States” from obtaining a “license of any type” in
Massachusetts.
It would also bar Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles
officials from asking about, or creating a record of, an
applicant’s citizenship or immigration status, and would
enable those without proof of lawful presence, including
individuals not eligible for Social Security numbers, to
obtain a license “if they meet all other qualifications for
licensure and provide satisfactory proof to the registrar of
identity, date of birth and Massachusetts residency.”
MassBudget estimated in a March 2020 report that the law
could help from 41,000 to 78,000 people get a state license
in the first three years after passage.
But the governor’s opposition represents a familiar and
longstanding roadblock.
“Governor Baker supports existing laws in Massachusetts,
enacted on a bipartisan basis, that ensure Massachusetts’
compliance with federal REAL ID requirements and enable
those who demonstrate lawful presence in the United States
to obtain a license,” Terry MacCormack, a spokesperson for
the governor, told MassLive on Tuesday.
Baker’s position on this matter dates back to at least 2014,
during his campaign for governor.
Supporters’ claims that depriving illegal immigrants a
driver’s license constitutes a public-safety, public-health
and economic hardship have merit.
And it’s also a fact that legislative momentum might now
render this bill veto-proof.
But how do you counter the argument that paving the way for
illegal immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses simply
provides another vehicle to promote their legitimacy.
It would seem to remove any incentive for those individuals
to take a legal route to residency in this state — and
ultimately citizenship in this country.
In short, providing illegal immigrants driver’s licenses is
a one-way street, not conditioned on any commitment on their
part to change their parallel, undocumented existence.
With a legal immigration-path provision, we could support
this driver’s license bill.
Without it, we can’t.
The Boston
Globe
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
What does immigration status have to do with a driver's
license?
by Jeff Jacoby
Massachusetts is home to about 200,000 unauthorized
immigrants of driving age, and lawmakers finally appear
ready to let them to do something nearly all of us take for
granted: apply for a driver’s license.
Late last week, the Legislature’s Joint Transportation
Committee voted 14-3 to favorably report a bill that would
make licenses available to people living in the country
without legal status. If the measure is approved by the full
House, it will go to the Senate for a vote, and, if the
Senate does likewise, to Governor Charlie Baker. Will he
sign it into law? In the past his answer was always no. On
Monday, for the first time, his office was noncommittal.
Maybe that’s a sign of progress.
It isn’t only in Massachusetts that this issue is being
debated. In Rhode Island, a bill authorizing driver’s
licenses for people living in the United States without
immigration papers passed the state Senate last year, and
the House is being urged to follow suit in the current
session. Similar legislation has been introduced in New
Hampshire, where the House Republican leader scorns it as a
“monumentally disloyal” attempt “to extend the rights of
people who are in our country and state illegally.” Other
states where lawmakers are wrestling with the topic include
Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.
It has never made sense to me that there should be such
apprehension about letting unauthorized immigrants get a
license to drive. No rational person thinks that residents
who entered the country without a visa should be barred for
that reason from applying for a debit card, signing up for
Netflix, or getting a COVID vaccine. Why the endless furor
over authorizing them to take a road test and obtain a
driver’s license?
“Paving the way for illegal immigrants to acquire driver’s
licenses simply provides another vehicle to promote their
legitimacy,” fumed the Lowell Sun in a recent editorial. But
that makes no sense. A driver’s license doesn’t promote
anything except public safety and better traffic
enforcement. With or without a license, thousands of
unauthorized foreigners have no choice but to drive. Like
millions of their fellow Massachusetts residents, many of
them need to get to work, drop off their kids at school, or
shop for groceries.
Making it possible for unauthorized immigrants to acquire a
driver’s license isn’t going to add “legitimacy” to their
immigration status. It isn’t going to have any effect on
their immigration status at all. What it will do is ensure
that they can be identified and that they’ve passed a
driving test. It will make them considerably less likely to
drive without insurance or to flee from the scene of an
accident. Whatever you think of people who live in America
without proper immigration papers, do you want them
operating motor vehicles without proper “driving papers” as
well?
In
a column a couple months back, I cast a cold eye on New
York City’s newly passed ordinance granting 800,000
noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections. I
argued against that decision on the grounds that the right
to vote is an explicit function of citizenship, and that
giving noncitizens the ballot undermines the importance of
citizenship itself.
But getting a driver’s license is as irrelevant to
citizenship as going to a doctor or getting $50 from an ATM.
For most adults in this country, driving is a necessity.
Nothing is gained, and a good deal is lost, by preventing
unauthorized immigrants from doing so legally.
During earlier rounds of this debate, Baker said his
objection to “giving licenses to people who are undocumented
is . . . that there’s no documentation to back up the fact
that they are who they say they are.” The bill before the
Legislature explicitly meets that concern, by requiring them
to supply proof of their identity, date of birth, and a
Massachusetts address. They will have to provide both a
valid passport (or consular ID) and a valid driver’s license
from another state or country, an original birth
certificate, or a Massachusetts marriage certificate. The
bill will have no effect on US immigration policy. Its only
purpose is to make sure that anyone getting behind the wheel
is qualified to drive and can be identified if pulled over.
Sixteen states, ranging from deep blue Connecticut to deep
red Utah, have made it legal for unauthorized foreigners to
apply for driver’s licenses. Massachusetts ought to become
the 17th. Let the immigration debate continue unimpeded,
while seeing to it that anyone driving in Massachusetts is
licensed to do so.
State House News
Service
Friday, February 18, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Open Says She and He
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
Tom Brady's 22 seasons in the NFL are nothing compared to
the 30-plus years House Speaker Ron Mariano has spent on
Beacon Hill. And with the Quincy Democrat eyeing a two-year
contract extension instead of retirement, who knows what
trick plays he has up his sleeve.
"There's only one quarterback, only one person calling the
play. Now I am," Mariano said Wednesday.
No, Mac Jones has nothing to worry about. This, of course,
was Mariano's way of explaining why after years of circular
debate the House this week for the first time voted on
legislation to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a
Massachusetts driver's license.
And it was a slam dunk. (Pardon the mixed-sports metaphors.)
The 120-36 vote easily cleared the bar that would be needed
to overturn a potential gubernatorial veto, and this should
not be a surprise. Mariano knows how to count, and whip,
votes, and he's not one to leave things to chance. Gov.
Charlie Baker stopped short of threatening a veto this week,
and though he insists he prefers the status quo on
licensing, House leaders believe there's a chance he could
be convinced to sign.
The bill was sold by Democrats as a public safety measure
that would ensure more drivers have the training and
insurance to be on the roads. Some, but not all, law
enforcement leaders rallied behind the measure, convinced
that the documentation required of applicants who can't
otherwise prove legal status would suffice.
The issue is now on the Senate's plate, but already
Mariano's decision to fight for this legislation has spilled
beyond the confines of the State House to the 2022 campaign
trail.
"The proposal is meant to make it easier for illegal aliens
to live in our state, contrary to arguments on the left it
would do nothing at all to improve road safety," said John
Carey, a Republican candidate for the open Cape & Islands
district attorney seat.
Every Democrat running for governor supports the bill, and
every Republican opposes it. That included Harvard professor
Danielle Allen until she abruptly dropped out of the
Democratic primary race on Tuesday, slamming the party's
caucus system and ballot access rules on her way out.
The rules - the same ones used by the MassGOP - require a
candidate to win the support of at least 15 percent of
delegates at the party convention to run as a Democrat. The
threshold has been defended over the years as a clearable
hurdle for anyone who fancies themselves a viable statewide
candidate, and it has not stopped outsiders like Deval
Patrick from successfully using the delegate election
process to build grassroots support.
But without saying she was struggling in the early caucuses,
Allen said there was "no excuse" for procedures that "push
out qualified but non-traditional candidates and rob the
people of Massachusetts of real choice on their ballot."
The rules, however, are the rules. And the week ended with
two Democrats and two Republicans still in contention to
succeed Baker.
Speaking of rules, the State
House will reopen next Tuesday to the public, but Mariano
and Senate President Karen Spilka said if you're planning a
visit be sure to bring a mask and your vax card, or a
negative COVID test "from no more than one day before
entry."
After Spilka floated Feb. 22 as a reopening date last week,
the two leaders got together on Monday to announce a mutual
decision to reopen the doors to the public after more than
700 days of being locked.
Just don't ask them how it will all work. The policy seemed
to be taking shape on the fly, with questions about who
would enforce the vaccine mandate or remind visitors to mask
up met by crickets. What about children under 5 who can't
get a vaccine? "Sure," Mariano said, unconvincingly after a
long pause.
While masks will be going on at the State House, the Baker
administration updated its public health guidance to say
that fully-vaccinated residents are no longer encouraged to
always wear a mask indoors. Instead, the new mask advisory
recommends that fully-vaccinated people only mask up if they
have a weakened immune system or if their age or an
underlying condition puts them at increased risk of severe
disease.
Education Secretary Jim Peyser and Health and Human Services
Secretary Marylou Sudders also urged university presidents
to begin to relax some of the masking rules around campus to
allow students to have a more normal college experience.
There was nothing normal about what the Governor's Council
did on Wednesday.
For the first time in 25 years, the council agreed to
commute the life sentences of two men convicted of first
degree murder. Baker recommended the commutations, which
will make Thomas Koonce and William Allen immediately
eligible for parole after they have each served decades in
prison.
The actions by the governor and the Governor's Council used
to be somewhat routine back in the 1970s, but politics
changed and the idea of commuting murder sentences to lesser
charges became increasingly rare starting in the late 1980s.
The Parole Board, which recommended the commutations to
Baker, is expected to act quickly on their release from
prison.
The rehabilitation of Koonce and Allen wasn't the only
turnaround that had the governor's attention this week.
Baker visited Somerset to celebrate the planned
redevelopment of the former Brayton Point coal-fired power
plant site to an offshore wind subsea transmission cable
manufacturing site.
A lot is riding on the success of Massachusetts' transition
away from fossil fuels like coal to resources like offshore
wind, and Energy Secretary Kathleen Theoharides said some of
the clean energy work the state is doing is paying off.
Theoharides reported to a legislative committee that
preliminary estimates of carbon emissions in 2020 were down
28.6 percent from 1990 levels, more than enough to meet the
state's legal requirement of a 25 percent reduction.
Of course, the decline in emissions was no doubt helped
along by a global pandemic that kept most people shuttered
in their homes for months in 2020, but a win is a win. And
on that front, Treasurer Deb Goldberg also secured a victory
this week when the state's pension board endorsed her plan
to use the $104 billion fund's influence to try to force
companies to address climate change.
The Pension Reserve Investment Management Board voted
unanimously to direct its fund managers to vote against
directors of companies that have not aligned their corporate
policies with the goals of the Paris Climate agreement.
"Some will still want divestment, but it's becoming more and
more evident that engagement potentially has a great deal
more impact," Goldberg said about her "shareholder activism"
approach.
Rep. Thomas Golden, a Lowell Democrat, has also played a
significant role in the state's development of clean energy
policy over the past several years as co-chair of the
Committee on Telecommunication, Utilities and Energy. But
now it appears Golden might have his sights set on a
different type of power.
Golden is seen as the frontrunner for the city manager's job
in Lowell after former state senator and current City
Manager Eileen Donoghue could not reach an agreement with
the City Council on a short-term contract extension.
If he lands the job, Golden would leave Beacon Hill well
before Second Assistant Majority Leader Joe Wagner, who
announced his plans this week to retire from the
Legislature, but not before former Rep. Sheila Harrington.
The Groton Republican left the House within hours of her
confirmation as the new clerk magistrate in Gardner District
Court, and hours before the House voted to approve the
immigrant licensing bill.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Mariano goes where no speaker before him
has gone, and the House follows his lead to okay driver's
licenses to immigrants without legal status.
State House News
Service
Friday, February 18, 2022
Advances - Week of Feb. 20, 2022
The State House reopens to the general public at 9 a.m.
Tuesday but don't expect a swarm of activity on Beacon Hill
as the Legislature is taking another break from formal
sessions and the only hearings on the docket will be held
virtually, including one on Gov. Baker's $700 million tax
relief plan.
House and Senate Democrats have even put their annual budget
hearings on a two-week hiatus that runs through next week,
when public schools across Massachusetts will be closed.
Massachusetts has a full-time Legislature but for years
lawmakers have positioned themselves with a light school
vacation week workload that permits them to "spend time in
the district," as aides like to say, and beyond.
With the reopening, the capitol will shed its designation as
the only one in the nation that has remained closed so deep
into the pandemic. The new normal under the dome will mirror
work arrangements elsewhere that feature an uptick in
in-person activity but a continuation of remote work that
appears here to stay.
But unlike other workplaces, the State House has
traditionally been a place where advocates, activists and
protesters have freely roamed, engaging directly with
lawmakers by hosting lobby and advocacy days and gathering
for higher profile protests featuring calls for change. The
weeks ahead will determine how much of that type of activity
returns.
The capitol is entering a new era where building entrants
will be asked to show proof that they have been vaccinated
against COVID-19 or a recent test result indicating that
they are negative for the virus, which continues to
circulate, with adverse health impacts especially a concern
among older residents and people with underlying health
conditions.
State House Reopening Info
Gates open at 9 a.m. at the Ashburton Park entrance off
Bowdoin Street. The Hooker Entrance on Beacon Street is
closed for renovations. It's an hour later than the State
House used to open, but the 5 p.m. closing time remains the
same.
Masks are required, and proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a
negative COVID test from within the past 24 hours will be
checked "at the door, prior to entry," according to a memo
sent to Senate offices this week by Majority Leader Cindy
Creem, which said the entry requirements will be reviewed
weekly by both branches.
The reopening "will permit the public to attend sessions as
well as to meet with members and staff. It will not,
however, change the status of committee hearing attendance
or public events, which remain on hold at this time," Creem
wrote.
Opening at the start of the short holiday week means that
lobbyists, advocates, and other spectators can drop in on
the House and Senate informal sessions at 11 a.m. Besides
the Legislature and executive offices, other officials say
their doors will also be open.
Secretary William Galvin's staff worked in-person throughout
most of the pandemic, and a spokeswoman indicated there
would be no change there -- the lights are on. Treasurer
Deborah Goldberg's office reports that starting Tuesday, her
office will be publicly accessible every day during regular
business hours. Auditor Suzanne Bump's office will be open
Tuesdays and Wednesdays, according to a spokeswoman, with
staff available by email or phone for the rest of the week.
For visitors who want the full educational experience,
Secretary Galvin's office plans to resume its historical
tours inside the State House on Tuesday on a by-appointment
basis, between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Tourists can call (617)
727-3676 to schedule a guided visit, which a spokeswoman
said would probably just include public spaces on the second
floor -- like Doric Hall, Memorial Hall, and the Great Hall
-- for the time being. Tour groups will be capped at 50
people.
For those who were regulars at the State House Cafe, maybe
bring a brown bag. It doesn't sound like the cafe is ready
for primetime yet, with a leadership change currently
underway since proprietor Frank Masone moved across the
street to the Quick Stop Shop in the McCormack Building. The
Commission for the Blind, which administers the fourth-floor
State House cafeteria, is working on getting a new breakfast
and lunch purveyor settled in.
And bring your own postage stamps. The Post Office in the
sub-basement underwent significant renovations during the
pandemic and is nearly unrecognizable in its dazzling new
paint job. But full service may not be available yet. Back
in December, a USPS spokesman said they were "ready to
reopen" -- "as soon as" State House staff were back working
in the building. Asked this week about whether the 02133
Branch would be operational Tuesday, the USPS was not able
to provide an immediate response, and a check of the room
showed that there's no cash register and hardly any
furniture in the place. —
Sam Doran
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