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SALEM — After a three-­minute floor discussion that conveyed none of the often-virulent opposition to the policy, the Oregon Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would create a new short-term driver’s license, or “driver card,” for illegal immigrants.

Senate Bill 833 passed on a 20-7 vote, with six GOP senators joining 14 Democrats in support. The seven “no” votes came from Republicans but — somewhat unusual for such a high-profile issue — none of them took the floor to explain their opposition. Three lawmakers were excused.

The bill now heads directly to the House floor.

Sen. Lee Beyer, a Springfield Democrat, said SB 833 would allow Oregon to return to a “realistic position” on the driver’s license issue.

No proof of legal residence was required in order to obtain an Oregon driver’s license until 2008, when the state instituted the restriction. Since then, critics of the proof-of-legal-residence requirement have argued that, until the federal government deals comprehensively with changing immigration law, it makes no sense to bar illegal immigrants who live and work in Oregon from getting a license.

Without a license, they can’t buy car insurance. As a result, lawmakers say, many illegal residents drive without insurance.

“This is purely about driver safety ... (so) that we know that our fellow drivers know what they’re doing and, if they have an accident, there’s insurance,” Beyer said Tuesday.

Sen. Chuck Thomsen, a Hood River Republican who co-sponsored SB 833, said that the bill “is not a perfect solution.”

“But in light of the federal government’s inactivity on this subject, it is needed as a stop-gap measure,” he said.

Under SB 833, four-year driver cards could be granted to individuals who can provide proof of identity and of at least one year of Oregon residency. Regular state licenses last eight years.

The new type of licenses would be slightly more expensive than typical Class C licenses, at $64 with a $44 renewal fee. No commercial license would be similarly made available.

The bill states that the driver cards couldn’t be used as identification for non-driving purposes.

If SB 833 becomes law and goes into effect next January, an estimated 110,000 people will obtain driver cards in the program’s first 18 months, generating $5.3 million in new revenue for the state, according to calculations by nonpartisan legislative staff.

After that initial surge, new transactions — both new cards and renewals — are expected to drop to about 41,000 every two years.

To deal with the increased transactions, the Department of Motor Vehicles expects to hire 6 full-time employees and 58 temporary employees statewide, at a cost to the state of $4.7 million for the first 18 months.

As with a new law approved this year that will allow some young illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Oregon’s public universities, the success of SB 833 appears to indicate a key shift in Oregon’s political landscape.

In addition to traditional support from immigrant rights’ groups, both concepts have garnered more visible backing from business and labor organizations this year, while opposition from some Republican lawmakers has softened.

After Tuesday’s short Senate debate, Cynthia Kendoll, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, which opposes both policies, said she was “stymied” and “disappointed” that opponents to SB 833 didn’t speak up.

Advocates for illegal immigrants living in this country are “well-organized, well-funded and apparently they’re guiding our legislators to vote” for a bill “that is full of holes,” she said.

In particular, she said, the legislation doesn’t provide enough direction to the Department of Motor Vehicles on how to make the driver cards look different from typical Oregon licenses as the bill requires.

That means lawmakers’ assurances that driver cards won’t be used for other identification purposes will fall flat, she said.

“Republican politicians are being lied to by Democrats, who say, ‘Unless you bow to the demands of Hispanic voters, you’ll continue to lose,’” she said. “But Democrats will ultimately take all the credit for these bills.”

Luis Guerra, a spokesman for Causa Oregon, a primarily Latino immigrant rights group, disagreed with Kendoll’s assessment. The main reason for the success of both SB 833 and the in-state tuition law, he said, was the broad coalitions of stakeholders backing each policy.

“All those voices together make a stronger case than just Causa,” he said.

Guerra acknowledged that politicians have been more open to working with Causa and similar advocacy groups following the 2012 election, but he said that both parties “have stepped up their outreach to communities of color.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen this much success at once,” he said. Read more about Oregon Senate approves ‘driver card’ for immigrants

SALEM — At the urging of immigrant rights groups, several significant business associations and Gov. John Kitzhaber, lawmakers appear likely to approve a bipartisan bill this session that would create a new short-term driving license for illegal immigrants.

Proponents believe the concept is grounded in realism, allowing a population that already lives and works in Oregon to drive legally and with insurance, until various immigration-related issues are comprehensively addressed at the federal level.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of Oregonians who have a visceral conviction that the policy gives an unwarranted benefit to lawbreakers, encouraging more illegal immigrants to come to the state, and without necessarily making the state’s roads any safer. Those conflicting viewpoints were expressed in full voice at a heavily attended first public hearing Thursday on Senate Bill 833. Although public testimony was limited to two minutes per person, many who had signed up to testify were unable to do so at the two-hour hearing, while those watching the proceedings spilled into at least three overflow rooms.

Mariana Alvarez Flores of Salem said she had taken the day off from her job as a farm laborer to testify to the committee in favor of the bill.

“I don’t like driving without a license, but right now I have no other option,” she said through a translator.

Conversely, Cynthia Kendoll, the president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said the proposal “is wrong on every level.”

“Just because you can pass a bill, doesn’t mean you should,” she said.

Under SB 833, four-year licenses — rather than the eight-year licenses possessed by most Oregon drivers — could be granted to individuals who can provide proof of identity and at least one year of Oregon residency.

The new type of licenses would be slightly more expensive than typical Class C licenses, at $74 with a $54 renewal fee after four years, although several amendments are being considered that would lower the amounts.

No commercial license would be similarly made available.

Sen. Chuck Thomsen, a Hood River Republican who is co-sponsoring the bill, noted that the licenses, or “driving cards” as they may ultimately be named, wouldn’t allow a holder to register to vote, or to purchase a gun. They also couldn’t be used as a legal form of identification for miscellaneous non-driving purposes, as typical licenses can be, he added.

“This is a very important piece of legislation that affects a lot of ... good people and their families who live here in Oregon,” he said.

Rep. Kim Thatcher, a Keizer Republican, was one of several who testified who cited examples of vehicle accidents involving illegal immigrants.

“I tell you this story not because I think all people without (citizenship) documents are driving around drunk,” she said. But “this is an illustration of what can happen when we issue licenses to people who shouldn’t have them to begin with.”

No further public hearings on the proposal are expected in the Senate. The bill has been scheduled for a work session on Monday, where it could be amended and voted to the chamber floor. Read more about Driver’s license bill likely to prevail

Gov. John Kitzhaber signed into law today a bill allowing in-state tuition for immigrant students without documents.

“This bill will help them get their shot at the American dream,” he said to legislators, advocates and students packed into his ceremonial office at the Capitol.

He described the students, whose parents brought them illegally to the United States when they were young, as “exactly the kind of young people we want in our system of public education and universities.”

For House Bill 2787, it was the end of a decade-long journey. Similar bills cleared the Senate in 2003 and 2011, but both died in the House without reaching a vote.

Students would qualify if they graduated from high school or its equivalent in Oregon, attended Oregon schools three years prior to graduation and U.S. schools for five years, and show their intent to obtain legal status or citizenship in the United States.

Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, is the chief Senate sponsor of the law and was the first to introduce such legislation in 2003. He did so at the request of Laura Lanka, then the principal of Woodburn High School.

In her original 2002 email, which Courtney read aloud, she wrote, “What a bill like this would do is allow our college-ready students, regardless of their immigration status, the opportunity to get an education.”

Lanka, who is retired and now lives in Washington state, was present at the ceremony.

State university officials said they expect the number of qualifying students to be limited, given that they still are ineligible for state and federal financial aid.

They estimate only 38 additional students in the coming two-year cycle, and 80 students in the 2015-17 cycle. The net gain in tuition was estimated at just under $350,000 in the next cycle, and $1.5 million in 2015-17, assuming that none pay out-of-state tuition at rates three or four times in-state rates.

Oregon joins 12 other states with similar laws, including California and Washington. Two others have acted by other means.

Democratic majorities in both chambers resulting from the Nov. 6 election made passage likely. Five Republicans joined all 34 Democrats for it in the House, and three Republicans joined all 16 Democrats for it in the Senate.

The minority Republicans in the House sponsored a substitute that would have limited eligibility to those participating in a delayed-deportation program created last year by President Barack Obama. Participants are eligible for work permits. But the House defeated the proposed substitute on a party-line vote.

Kitzhaber took no public stance on a similar bill in 2011. But he said during his budget presentation on Nov. 30 he would sign such a bill, and held a news conference on it Feb. 11 with business leaders.

Oregon’s major business groups joined the Oregon Student Association and immigrant-rights groups in backing the bill. Oregonians for Immigration Reform, which is critical of federal immigration policy, opposed it.

Opponents have already said a legal challenge is likely. Gabriela Morrongiello, a sophomore at Oregon State University who is from California — and who is president of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom chapter — stated there would be a challenge in her testimony to a House committee on Feb. 13.

California’s law was upheld in 2010 by that state’s highest court, and in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.

If Oregon’s law is challenged, the case would go directly to the state Supreme Court, which has the authority to appoint someone to sort out disputes on facts before the justices hear oral arguments. Read more about Gov. Kitzhaber signs tuition bill allowing in-state tuition for immigrant students