Red circles are “NO” voters on pro-American public safety bill.

Dalton Daily Citizen

Letter to the editor

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Not buying Sen. Payne’s explanation

I appreciated the letter to the editor from Mr. D.A. King of the Dustin Inman Society educating us on Sen. Chuck Payne’s vote to kill a Republican-sponsored illegal alien driver’s license reform bill. Thanks to the Daily Citizen-News editors for running it.

It came as shocking news for many people that GOP Georgia is giving any driver’s licenses to any illegals.

The fact that we are documenting “the undocumented” doesn’t square with the message that politicians who campaign as Republican “conservatives” are doing everything possible to make Georgia unattractive to illegal immigration. The fact that non-citizens, who the Department of Homeland Security says lack lawful immigration status, carry around the same state-issued credentials as the legal immigrants we welcome is just wrong. Additionally, the revelation that the illegals use their driver’s licenses as valid federal ID for things like getting through security at American airports as easily as Americans boggles the logical mind. Can you see the potential security threat? I certainly can.

At our house, we are having trouble following Payne’s intellectual consistency on his recent votes. His rebuttal letter to Mr. King here tells us he thought the monetary cost of a law that would clearly mark the illegal aliens’ driver’s licenses was too high and that he thought it would cause the “creation of a whole new bureaucracy to enforce these new provisions would come without any warranted difference from what we currently have.” Huh? I still don’t have any idea what that meant. And I didn’t see him say what the cost was. Don’t all laws have a cost? Some new spending, especially on matters of public safety, is wise.

Less than a week after Payne joined the Dems in voting “no” in a committee against reliably-conservative Sen. Josh McKoon’s driver’s license bill, he voted “yes” in the full senate on SB452, a bill that will increase the chances of authorities being informed of the status of illegal aliens after they are arrested and prosecuted for additional crimes. I applaud that common sense vote. But I don’t follow Payne’s logic or priorities in adding to “the size of government.”

Maybe Payne is getting confusing advice from his campaign manager/advisor or the Gold Dome cheap-labor lobbyists on illegal immigration. Whatever the case, his letter here was unconvincing and discomforting to conservative voters who value public safety and steady, consistent, logical representation in Atlanta.

Denise Burns

Ringgold

Here