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Giuliani, supporter Edgar at odds over immigrant licenses
By Rick Pearson | Tribune political reporter rap30@aol.com
10:47 PM CST, November 20, 2007

http://www.chicagotribune.com

As former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar endorsed Rudolph Giuliani's presidential bid Tuesday, he also waded into the escalating debate over immigration among the GOP's White House contenders by saying he supports driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Edgar's position is sharply at odds with Giuliani as well as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who have been waging a sharpened debate in recent days over which of the two would be the strongest in combating illegal immigration.

The issue of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants came to the fore when it was proposed and then recently discarded by New York Democratic Gov. Elliot Spitzer amid a political firestorm. Spitzer's proposal caused havoc for Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential bid when she first failed to specifically say whether she backed the program, then her campaign said she supported it, and then she said she opposed it.


But Spitzer's proposal prompted the GOP contenders to seize even tighter upon illegal immigration as a campaign issue. With Giuliani's support, a key ally, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, proposed a federal ban on undocumented immigrants getting state driver's licenses. And Romney said he opposed such a program, contending it would encourage more illegal immigration.

Edgar, however, said giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants was a "traffic safety" issue and one he has supported it in the past. A former Illinois secretary of state in charge of driver's licenses, Edgar said he didn't believe the driver's license issue should be part of the "whole immigration thing."

"From a traffic safety point of view, my theory is, it's kind of like on crime: I don't want unsafe drivers out there," said Edgar, a former two-term governor. "I want people to have insurance out there and I think most people I know, most other motorists, have the same feeling."

Overall, Edgar said, he believed immigration reform has "been an issue that's been demagogued to a great extent and I think it's unfortunate."

In accepting the endorsement of the former two-term governor at a downtown Chicago hotel, Giuliani did not touch on the festering immigration issue. But his campaign and Romney's have traded jabs in recent days, with the former Massachusetts governor accusing Giuliani of having a "sanctuary state of mind" as New York mayor for policies that Romney contended encouraged illegal immigrants to work in the city without fear of municipal immigration enforcement and gave them tuition tax breaks.

Giuliani's campaign countered that Romney's approval of a program to use Massachusetts state troopers to enforce immigration laws was meaningless since Romney did it late in his term and it was rescinded by his successor before it took effect. The Giuliani camp also cited a Boston Globe account last year of an undocumented immigrant working on Romney's driveway.

The battling came as Giuliani expressed his belief that "some of the other candidates have kind of ignored" Illinois, with a large cash of presidential nominating delegates at stake in the Feb. 5 primary. Trailing Romney in polling in Iowa and some early states while leading surveys nationally, Giuliani is looking to Illinois and other large states holding primaries on Feb. 5 to offset earlier contests where conservatives hold significant sway.

"Believe me, we're not ignoring Illinois," Giuliani said. "You're going to be a very important Feb. 5 primary, a primary we want to win."