Impasse Feared on Driver’s Licenses

Months of talks between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration and a key legislator have failed to lead to an agreement on extending driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, bringing the Capitol to the brink of a showdown over one of the most contentious issues from last year’s recall campaign.

The emerging deadlock is a notable exception to the generally smooth bipartisan relations that have prevailed in the Capitol this year. Some Democrats are accusing the governor of abandoning assurances that he would help write a new license law to replace the one they reluctantly repealed nearly six months ago at Schwarzenegger’s urging.

Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), the sponsor of the original law who has been negotiating for months with administration officials, said Tuesday that he is drafting a new measure for the Democratic-controlled Legislature to pass and send to the governor’s desk.

The bill, which Cedillo plans to formally introduce next week, would attempt to address Schwarzenegger’s main complaint -- that criminals and others might be able to gain legitimacy and false identities by obtaining the documents. It would do that by charging illegal immigrants higher license fees and using the money to underwrite background checks. He said it would contain several other provisions to blunt some of the criticisms of the old law.

“We’re prepared to move this process forward. We need to engage the governor directly,” Cedillo said. “There’s really not much more work for us to do unless the governor has something that we don’t know.”

Margita Thompson, the governor’s spokeswoman, said aides had been holding recent and frequent meetings with Cedillo with the aim of reaching a compromise. “We have been negotiating and in talks that have been completely in good faith in terms of bringing in different experts in the field to determine whether or not these issues of public safety and background checks can be addressed.”

But the politically charged topic of issuing driver’s licenses to California’s estimated 2 million illegal immigrants is starting to appear to be more bedeviling than many of the other long-stalled Sacramento subjects that Schwarzenegger has tackled during his brief tenure.

During his campaign last year, he was praised by conservative talk radio shows for pledging to repeal the law that then-Gov. Gray Davis signed in September. In December, Democratic legislators obliged their new Republican governor by removing the 3-month-old law from the books rather than face an initiative campaign that could have done it for them.

The Democrats said they went along with the repeal after receiving assurances that the new governor would work with them to draft an acceptable compromise.

“The governor told me [in December] personally that he would sign a bill,” said Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley), one of the legislators who refused to repeal the original law. “The words he said to me were, ‘I will have a bill by January.’ I think he obviously isn’t keeping the promise.”

Schwarzenegger articulated that view publicly, saying on the day the old law was repealed that “I look forward to working ... on this issue in January during the regular legislative session to find a sensible solution to this issue.”

Since then, however, there has been little progress. Senate Republicans dropped out of the discussions a few weeks ago, saying that they saw no way to provide the licenses without endangering public safety.

“I think the governor’s [political] base is very much against driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants period,” said Arnold Steinberg, a GOP consultant. “It seems to me the only problem he has is with the Democrats if he conveyed some assurances. He may risk some relationship with them, but it’s probably better to do that than risk his relationship with his base.”

The heated passion over the topic has not dissipated. In April, a San Bernardino church property was vandalized with red, white and blue paint just hours before Cedillo was scheduled to hold a forum on the topic.

The pace of the deliberations has increased doubts among Democratic legislators about the governor’s commitment to finding common ground. They note the difference from his actions in regard to workers’ compensation insurance and the state budget.

In both cases, Schwarzenegger readily compromised, leading to a workers’ comp deal last month and wide agreement in Sacramento that a budget will be in place by the June 15 deadline.

There have been some murmurings among legislators that they might refuse to pass a budget until the issue was resolved.

Thompson told reporters Tuesday that Schwarzenegger had not changed his stance. “From our point of view, he’s been consistent in saying that there’s no prospect for getting a bill if you cannot address the issues of background checks for security and insurance.”

Cedillo, however, said the governor’s aides had agreed in February that the subject of how to insure the drivers did not need to be part of the negotiations.

Asked whether the discussions with the governor’s office have been in good faith, Cedillo, a former labor negotiator, said: “Negotiations in politics appears to be different than negotiations in labor.... I don’t know if they know that their conduct has been bad faith. I don’t know if they know that to continually bring up proposals that have already been settled is bad faith.... I don’t know if they know that not dispensing with items and moving forward after six months is being dilatory.”

Advocates for the measure are still holding out hope that Schwarzenegger will ultimately agree to some sort of deal.

“There’s been a lot of weighty issues on his desk. He’s cleared off a number of those,” said Nativo Lopez, national director of the National Mexican Brotherhood, a Santa Ana-based immigrant- rights group that has organized a rally in front of the Capitol today. “I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.... We’re waiting for the governor to keep his word.”

Schwarzenegger is meeting with the Latino legislative caucus Thursday, and several legislators said they expect this will be a central topic.

They hope his personal involvement, as well as heightened attention in public, will end whatever stalemate exists.

But Dan Schnur, a prominent GOP consultant, said any legislation the Democrats pass without Schwarzenegger’s participation would be vetoed “in a millisecond.”

“The best person to go to for political analysis is the former governor, Gray Davis,” Schnur said.

“He would probably tell you fairly quickly how strongly most Californians would oppose this legislation.”

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Times staff writer Peter Nicholas contributed to this report.