http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/st ... 68,00.html

New bill proposes immigrant licenses
State senator's fifth try in 7 years

By Steve Lawrence, The Associated Press
June 27, 2005

SACRAMENTO -- State Sen. Gil Cedillo is making his fifth attempt in seven years to enact legislation allowing illegal immigrants to get California driver's licenses. This time he's hoping to get a governor's signature that will stick.

Former Gov. Gray Davis signed a Cedillo bill legalizing the licenses in 2003, but lawmakers overturned it after Davis was recalled following a campaign in which the license legislation was one of the issues used against him.

Davis' successor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed the repeal bill and vetoed another version of the license bill last year, saying it didn't include adequate security provisions.

Now Cedillo is back with a bill that would implement new federal requirements for the licenses and presumably give Schwarzenegger what he wants -- a license with a unique design or color that wouldn't be widely accepted as a valid identification document.

Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said the bill is premature because the Department of Homeland Security hasn't issued regulations spelling out the details of federal requirements.

"We need to see what those regulations are going to be," she said. "They could come up and say we need to have blue licenses and we're doing red licenses and have a whole bunch of money spent."