Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday vetoed a bill making immigrants without legal status eligible to seek state-issued driver’s licenses, saying the Registry of Motor Vehicles, an agency that he oversees, doesn’t have the ability to verify the identities of potential applicants.
Following years of advocacy for the bill, House and Senate Democrats on Thursday enacted the legislation, which supporters say will make the roads safer by granting access to licenses for many undocumented immigrants who are already living throughout the state.
Republican opposition to the bill was steady throughout its journey through the Legislature, and officeholders and candidates at the GOP convention last weekend in Springfield sporadically and pointedly expressed their opposition to the proposal.
In his veto message, Baker said the legislation “significantly increases the risk that noncitizens will be registered to vote,” a possibility that bill supporters have refuted. The governor said the bill “restricts the Registry’s ability to share citizenship information with those entities responsible for ensuring that only citizens register for and vote in our elections.”
The bill cleared both branches with more than enough support to override Baker’s veto. The House voted 118-36 to accept the conference committee report on the bill; the Senate vote was 32-8.
It will be up to the House to initiate a veto override, with a two-thirds vote required in each branch to make the bill law.
Under the bill (H 4805), expanded access to standard driver’s licenses would begin on July 1, 2023. Applicants under the bill would need to provide proof of their identity, date of birth and residency in Massachusetts.
A broad coalition of immigrants, immigrant rights organizations, labor unions, lawmakers and others have for years pressed state lawmakers to pass the legislation, which has long been a top priority for undocumented immigrants in the state. It would provide about 185,000 immigrants the ability to drive to work, school and elsewhere without breaking the law and risking deportation.
In a statement late Friday, advocates for the bill said they are confident the Legislature will override Baker’s veto.
“As the co-chairs of a coalition of over 270 organizations endorsing the Work and Family Mobility Act, we are disappointed that Governor Baker has chosen to veto a bill that would indisputably improve road safety, strengthen community and law enforcement relations, assist public health measures in the pandemic, and of course, profoundly transform the lives of undocumented immigrants across the Commonwealth,” said Brazilian Worker Center Executive Director Lenita Reason and 32BJ SEIU Vice President Roxana Rivera, the leaders of the organizations co-chairing the Driving Families Forward Coalition.
They said Baker simply repeats claims that have been disproven before.
“In crafting the bill, legislators, advocates and law enforcement allies made sure that all applicants would be required to prove their identity with secure, official documents, which is one reason that the State Attorney General and so many chiefs of police, district attorneys, and sheriffs across Massachusetts have enthusiastically supported the measure,” Reason and Rivera wrote. “Likewise, the governor’s objection about fraudulent voting reflects a baseless fear unsupported by the evidence in Massachusetts, where thousands of non-citizens are regularly issued licenses, or in other states.”
Members of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, whose members and allies have testified and protested in support of the bill for years, were pleased that it is moving forward.
“I’m happy because finally we immigrants can drive without fear,” said Claudia Rosales, an executive co-director of the center.
Herself an immigrant from El Salvador, Rosales said that those without legal status have had to fear being deported and separated from their families whenever they got behind the wheel. Even if somebody else was at fault in a traffic collision, for example, an immigrant would be taken to court for driving without a license.
“We’re grateful and excited,” Rosales said. “And studying now for the driving exam.”
“It’s about time,” said Alfonso Neal, an executive co-director of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center. “We are so overjoyed that this has passed with a veto-proof majority. It’s something we have been working toward for so long.”
The legislation requires any Bay Stater without legal status in the United States seeking a driver’s license to provide the RMV with either a valid, unexpired foreign passport or a valid, unexpired consular identification document, plus one of five other documents: a valid, unexpired driver’s license from another U.S. state or territory; an original or certified copy of a birth certificate; a valid, unexpired foreign national identification card; a valid, unexpired foreign driver’s license; or a marriage certificate or divorce decree from any U.S. state or territory.
Transportation Committee Co-chair Rep. William Straus on Thursday described the compromise version to his colleagues as “very much the bill you approved earlier this year.”
“The public safety standard that we enunciated as a body in February, which was inspired by the remarks and the position taken by the governor, is intact in this bill,” Straus said during the House’s session. “That public safety standard is the touchstone for this bill.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.