Changing initiative language purposefully muddles debate

Desperate to assure that the driver card bill for illegal aliens (Senate Bill 833) will go into effect this year, several Oregon legislators are trying to change the title of the opposing citizen referral No. 301.

By erasing any reference to legal presence and replacing it with a slogan about road safety, these legislators hope to confuse voters about the referral’s intent.

Everyone wants “road safety,” but nothing in SB 833 provides any, which spurred concerned citizens to march this bill to the voter. If SB 833 was about safety, it would have demanded irrevocable prepaid insurance for the life of the four year license, but it doesn’t. It allows illegal aliens to buy insurance just long enough to get their card.

This practice was so common that after driver’s licenses for illegal aliens ended in 2008, the DMV admitted it didn’t notice any change in insurance non-compliance. As for DMV testing, I remember a scandal involving the Salem DMV helping Spanish-speaking applicants with the written section, and what happened on the road test is anyone’s guess. What would prevent the DMV from passing bad drivers as a way of easing the pressure on the system again?

Call me unconvinced. SB 833 also protects foreign drug dealers from the automatic car searches that getting caught driving without a license would have triggered. Does Senate Bill 833 make you feel safer now?

Sadly, every Democrat legislator passed this toothless “road safety” bill, along with some Republicans including Vic Gilliam, Ted Ferrioli, Mark Johnson, Bill Hansell, Bob Jenson and Greg Smith. Vic Gilliam just joined Democrat representative Jessica Vega-Pederson to pass a law allowing the legislature to change the title of referral No. 301. It’s like letting a politician write his opponent’s campaign slogans, but to lawmakers who protect law breakers, changing the rules after the fact to undermine a citizen referral is just part of the game.