Cobb: Driving Backwards

November 26, 2003

Driving Backwards

It's crap like this that make Californians initiative crazy. The latest news is that the original sponsor of SB 60 has 'worked out a deal' with the new S. administration in Sacramento to have his law repealed and re-introduced with some 'security' provisions.

In a victory statement, Sen. Rico Oller (R-San Andreas), author of the repeal, said the Senate "chose to do the right thing and repeal fundamentally flawed legislation that would have put California's safety at risk." Oller and others complained that the law failed to require sufficient security measures.

Earlier, Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), the author of SB 60, set in motion the Democratic reversal when he announced his support for a Republican-crafted bill to repeal the license law, a move that Cedillo depicted as a tactical retreat rather than surrender.

"I'm placing my confidence and trust with the governor as we go through the process," Cedillo said before the Transportation Committee voted 9 to 2 to repeal the law.

The 'deal' is that the sponsor of the initiative to recall the recently passed law will drop his signature drive if the California Legislature reverses itself in a particularly spectacular way. According to the recent vote, which was unanimous to repeal the law, the Legislature apparently had no problem whatsoever in doing so.

I have a hard time accepting that the opposition to SB 60 wasn't a blood and soil thing. But it's interesting how the LAT, and probably all major media cover such matters. They talk about the strong opposition from Latino groups which is obviously a racial thing but it can't be portrayed as racial the other way. See?

At any rate, the number of documents that California drivers need to produce will presumeably increase from say 3 to 5 and the same class of immigrants will likely be covered by the renegotiated bill. What kills me is that the sponsor of the original SB 60 believes that he'll get a fair shake, because he really hasn't spoken at length with S. to preliminarily agree on what provisions should be and should not be in the new proposed bill. That's a lot of faith.

Posted by mbowen at November 26, 2003 12:18 AM

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