Spitzer's Speeding to the Bottom

Gov. Eliot Spitzer continues to show a tin ear when it comes to being governor of New York. He's busy pushing his latest idea - giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens.

That idea has proven unpalatable to even his fellow Democrats and his polling on the issue shows that he's in a free fall.

In a Siena College poll released yesterday, 72 percent of New Yorkers oppose the gov's license plan - while only 22 percent support it.

Opposition to Spitzer's plan runs across the board: Even 52 percent of his fellow Democrats think he's wrong.

To underscore that fact, Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco yesterday released a list of 34 Democrats among 200 public officials opposed to the plan - including a former mayor of New York, a county executive, two members of Congress, seven members of the state Legislature and 17 county legislators.

In other words, it's hardly just the "rabid right" that opposes this lunacy, as Spitzer so intemperately claimed last week.

Indeed, a full 64 percent of those polled by Siena agree that the Spitzer proposal would create a national-security risk.

And by a 66-25 percent margin, New Yorkers aren't buying the governor's rationale for the plan: that it would lower insurance rates by reducing the number of unlicensed drivers.

Any way you look at it, those numbers add up to a political disaster for Eliot Spitzer.

The same poll shows his personal approval rating - which stood at an astounding 75 percent when he took office last January - has now dipped sharply, to 54 percent.

And what do New Yorkers think of Spitzer's actual job performance?

For the first time, a clear majority - 55 percent - rated it as poor or just fair. At the start of the year, less than one in five felt that way.

He has only himself and his huge ego to blame. The year started off with Troopergate (where he was accused of engaging in unethical use of State Police in investigating GOP Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, and the ethical cloud continues to swirl around Spitzer's office.

Now, he's pushing this latest boneheaded idea. There's no reason for anyone to believe that requiring licensing for illegal aliens will somehow make roads safer. Illegal aliens have already shown themselves unwilling to avail themselves of the legal methods of gaining access to the US and become legal residents, so extending the privilege of drivers licenses makes little sense, especially when such documents are crucial for identification purposes and terrorists and criminals are sure to take advantage of such a system. Spitzer's plan would be predicated on granting drivers licenses to those who have valid foreign passports. Forge a foreign passport - obtain a valid NYS driver's license. It's a disaster lurking in the wings, and most people seem to tacitly recognize it as such.

Albany may finally take common sense action, by refusing to fund the Governor's plan. Even DMV officials think the idea is a bad one.

There's also the not insigificant issue of NYS law. State law requires that the DMV obtain an individual's SSN in the application process. Spitzer's proposal would do away with that by fiat, ignoring state law, though the Court of Appeals has ruled that the Commissioner of the DMV has wide latitude in determining what documents are acceptable.

I think that places far too much discretion in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians whose agendas may run counter to the will of the people - and the law on the books. There are solid reasons as to why documentation is required to obtain driver's licenses, and Spitzer is doing all he can to skirt the rules and impose a far less restrictive set of rules that opens up the door to malfeasance.