Maybe It’s Time for Cedillo to Let Arnold Take the Wheel

State Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) has been down the same road for six years and always has been stopped short of his goal: driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. So it’s probably time to change directions.

Assuming a driver’s license is the only goal of Cedillo and other Latino legislators -- and not a government photo ID that can open the door to other privileges of legal residency -- the senator should follow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lead. Allow the governor to point the way along a route that’s politically passable.

Give illegal immigrants a driver’s license that is clearly distinguishable -- by color or mark or shape -- from a regular license. It couldn’t be used, for example, to board commercial airplanes.

But it would help assure that drivers here illegally know the rules of the road and are insured. That would be good for all Californians. And it would be a relief for Democratic politicians. They could get off this losing issue.

Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed the latest of Cedillo’s bills to provide driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

“One of the most important duties of [a] governor,” he wrote in his veto message, “is to protect citizens. Determining the true identify and history of an individual is a key component of that protection. This bill does not adequately address [these] security concerns....”

Cedillo can’t be faulted for trying. The former labor leader, first elected to the Assembly in 1998, had driver’s license bills vetoed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2000 and 2002.

Davis should have signed the 2002 bill because it included tight security checks. But he was running for reelection and playing games. The next year when he was trying to fight off a recall, Davis pandered to Latinos by signing a weaker Cedillo bill.

Huge mistake. Schwarzenegger used the bill to batter Sacramento for being out of touch with California. The Republican promised to repeal the measure. And after his election, the Democratic Legislature quickly obliged, facing a certain ballot referendum if it refused.

There were many accusations after that, mostly from Cedillo. He accused Schwarzenegger of reneging on a promise to negotiate a new bill with security safeguards -- background checks, fingerprints, photos and insurance requirements.

Cedillo proceeded anyway. His next bill -- passed narrowly without Republican support on the last night of the legislative session -- fulfilled all the governor’s demands, the senator insisted. “We expect him to honor his word,” he said.

But Schwarzenegger along the way had decided that a license for illegal immigrants should look different.

“Just like when you take a driver’s license in Israel, it says big on it, ‘Foreigner,’ ” the governor told reporters at the Republican National Convention. “When you take a driver’s license from Mexico, it says huge on it, ‘Foreigner.’

“If they really want to just drive legally, then why be opposed to a different color? I want them to drive legally so they can take their kids to school, so they can go do all the things, go to work.... But it has to be a document that cannot be used for getting another document or, you know, for the airlines.”

Give Schwarzenegger credit: He’s not one of these demagogic nativists who considers a driver’s license a “benefit” -- a “reward” for border-sneaking -- and therefore should be denied to anybody here illegally. He understands that more than a million of these people are going to drive anyway, and so we’re better off testing them and requiring insurance.

Cedillo and others argue that a distinguishable license would be akin to the yellow Star of David that the Nazis made Jews wear. Nonsense. Jews wore those big stars on their chests, like targets. A driver’s license would be tucked inside a wallet and showed only if its holder were caught speeding. Or driving drunk.

Immigrant-rights activists also fear the different-looking license could be used by cops to tip off the feds about deportation prospects. Presumably, that could be prohibited by the legislation.

But, look, it’s useless to argue about policy. The reality is that Cedillo’s proposal is not politically sustainable. Not in this terrorist climate. Not when people have to take off their shoes and surrender nail clippers at airport security gates.

Republicans would scream if the governor gave regular driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. He has offered about as much as he can.

Already, a volunteer group, the California Republican Assembly, is planning a “Save Our License” ballot initiative that would deny public services to illegal immigrants -- a son-of-Proposition 187. This measure, however, would exempt K-12 schools and other federally mandated services.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) seems to see the larger picture.

“The way I look at it,” he says, “is you can keep pushing the issue, but you’ve got to find common ground with the governor. Or it’s just going be an exercise in civics.

“We’re going to have to come back and have a serious discussion with him about ‘the mark,’ if that’s the only way he’s going to sign a bill. It’s a tough pill for me to swallow, but at the end of the day, the need for the driver’s license outweighs it.

“I look at it as a scarlet letter, to be honest with you. But we need for people to get to and from work.”

It’s clearly the only way to get to the governor’s signature.

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.