Posted: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 10:00 pm | Updated: 7:22 pm, Thu Dec 5, 2013.
By Steve Terrell
The New Mexican

Although Gov. Susana Martinez hasn’t yet released the list of measures she plans to introduce during the next legislative session, one item definitely will be on the list: She will once again push to repeal the law that allows the state to issue driver’s licenses to immigrants who are living in the country illegally.

The 30-day session, which begins Jan. 21, will be focused on the state budget, but the governor can introduce items that are not related to budget issues.

The governor’s deputy chief of staff, Scott Darnell, noted this week that Martinez, who will seek another four-year term in 2014, has pledged to keep trying to pass the driver’s license bill as long as she is governor.

Martinez’s driver’s license bill has been one of the more controversial and divisive measures debated in the Roundhouse in recent years. It has failed in the Legislature during the past three regular sessions. But whether or not it passes in 2014, the issue of driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants is bound to become a wedge issue in the gubernatorial campaign and several legislative races.

House Republican Whip Nate Gentry of Albuquerque told The New Mexican on Wednesday he believes Martinez now has the numbers to push the measure through the House.

But Gentry admitted that getting the driver’s license bill through the Senate, where Democrats have firmer control, could be tough. The House has 37 Democrats and 33 Republicans, while Democrats have a 25-17 edge in the Senate.

Gentry said Martinez’s recent appointment of Republican Vickie Perea of Belen to complete the term of the late Santa Fe Democrat Stephen Easley tips the political makeup of the House in favor of the driver’s license bill.

In the session held early this year, House Republicans and a handful of Democratic supporters failed by one vote to “blast” House Bill 606 out of committee and onto the House floor. The bill died in the House Appropriations and Finance Committee.

Easley, who died in August, voted to keep the bill off the floor, while conservative Perea presumably could vote to “blast” it in the upcoming session.

Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, a longtime opponent of the bill, said Wednesday, “I’m disappointed that the governor continues to push to take driver’s licenses away from people who need them to take their kids to school and to go to work. … Her job is to make it easier on the lives of New Mexicans, and I don’t see how it improves the lives of some New Mexican kids to take away their parents’ driver’s licenses.”

Egolf also said it’s a waste of time to debate the driver’s license bill during a short, 30-day session, which mainly is devoted to passing a state budget.

When Martinez first began her effort to repeal the law — which was passed under her predecessor, Bill Richardson, in 2003 — New Mexico was one of only three states to issue licenses to undocumented residents.

But since that time, several other states have adopted such laws, bringing the total to 11 states and Washington, D.C., according to the National Immigration Law Center. Many of those other states, however, issue different types of licenses to immigrants who are living in the country illegally.

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