Massachusetts Petition to Block Drivers’ Licenses for Illegal Aliens Qualifies for November Ballot
FAIR Take | September 2022
The Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office announced on September 9 that it certified 71,833 signatures for the petition against drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens. Therefore, Massachusetts voters will have the opportunity to decide in November whether illegal aliens will be granted drivers’ licenses.
The Massachusetts legislature enacted drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens on June 9, when two-thirds of both chambers voted to override Governor Charlie Baker (R)’s May 27 veto of the so-called “Work and Family Mobility Act,” House Bill (H.) 4805. The new law that authorizes the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to issue drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2023. However, voters have the opportunity to negate the law in November and if they do, it would be repealed before it takes effect.
The process to get the drivers’ license law before the voters began on June 13 when Angel Mom Maureen Maloney filed a Statement of Organization with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance to create the Fair and Secure Massachusetts committee.
Maloney’s son Matthew was killed by an illegal alien drunk driver in 2011. She says, “I do not think that we should be rewarding people for being in the country illegally … I think the RMV is not equipped to properly vet people coming to the United States from over 100 different countries and being able to reliably decipher their documentation that, first of all, in the different language and second of all, for validity.”
The petition was approved for circulation by Secretary of State William Galvin (D) and Attorney General Maura Healey (D) on June 28 and signature-gathering to qualify it for the ballot began the same day.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl and his running mate Leah Cole Allen, as well as Massachusetts GOP chairman Jim Lyons strongly supported efforts to get the drivers’ licenses law on the ballot. Diehl said the new law would “seriously undermine the safety and security of Massachusetts residents and threaten the integrity of our elections.”
Despite open-borders protesters, including members of the legislature like Senator Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton), attempting to dissuade and, in some cases, actually physically block people from signing the petition, the signature gatherers were successful and were able to vastly exceed the signature requirements. To get the petition placed on the November ballot, the organizers were required to submit 40,120 certified signatures, of which no more than 10,030 could come from any one county. The petitioners submitted 84,144, twice the number required and the Secretary of State validated 71,883.
Upon receiving the news, Maloney commended the efforts of everyone involved, saying “[m]aking the ballot is a huge achievement, and to do it with such an excess of signatures shows the groundswell of support across the commonwealth for repealing this law.”
Polls on the issue have been divided.
[CLICK HERE] to read the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s letter to Maureen Maloney officially declaring the referendum petition successful and approving it for the November ballot.