No Driver’s License Bill in California This (an Election) Year

California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, assessing the election-year implications of a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, said Thursday that he didn’t want to provide fodder to “crackers” in San Diego. Previewing the final four weeks of the legislative session, Perata was asked at a news conference if he would send to the governor a bill that would grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Perata said he hadn’t thought about it but would keep in mind that it is a hot-button issue in an election year. “Immigration is a red meat issue. You’ve got all these crackers down in San Diego taking on the governor. Even the governor was shocked,” he said, referring to Schwarzenegger’s assessment of the heated rhetoric surrounding the immigration debate in that part of the state. “Those aren’t the people I represent. But there is no point in getting into a pitched, vocal battle with these people. … If you start getting engaged with these people, you get tar all over yourself.” The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary lists “cracker” as a disparaging term for a poor, usually Southern, white person. The New Georgia Encyclopedia, a project of the Georgia Humanities Council, says that “among African Americans ‘cracker’ became a contemptuous term for white southerner; among some southern whites it has become a label of ethnic and regional pride.”

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KJ