Since 2001, Tennessee has issued a "certificate" to immigrants that allows them to drive even though they may not be legal residents. This may be a way out for states that don't agree with the Real I.D. Act.

Tennessee is one of only two states that issue two different driver's permits: a license, for citizens and permanent residents; and a certificate for driving, primarily for those who cannot prove they are here legally. To satisfy domestic security concerns, the state has tried to forbid the certificate's use as identification. Utah also has a two-tiered system.

With Congress preparing to require states to issue driver's licenses only to citizens and legal residents, other states that want to allow noncitizens to drive may begin looking to Tennessee's system as a model.

Two-tiered systems like Tennessee's are discriminatory. Since the certificate is so different in appearance from a driver's license, it's a red flag - a scarlet letter. It doesn't operate as an identification card which prevents many immigrant workers from opening bank accounts. It would be better for the Senate to refuse to pass the Real ID Act this week. Since that's not likely to happen, this may be the best alternative.

Microsoft has redeemed itself. In an about-face today, it has announced it will support Washington State's gay rights bill.

In a turnaround Friday, Microsoft Corp. chief executive Steve Ballmer said the company will support gay rights legislation. Ballmer made the announcement in an e-mail to employees two weeks after gay rights activists accused the company of withdrawing its support for an anti-discrimination bill in its home state after an evangelical pastor threatened to launch a national boycott.

"After looking at the question from all sides, I've concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda," Ballmer wrote.

by TChris

The morality police are on the job in Texas, represented by a state legislator who wants to protect Texans from salacious high school cheerleaders.

His bill would order state education officials to investigate any school-sponsored performance that is "overtly sexually suggestive."

What constitutes "suggestive" cheering no doubt depends on the imagination of the observer. Perhaps Texas legislators who are nagged by impure thoughts at the sight of a pom-pom squad would be better served by averting their eyes at halftime.

This commentator suggests that Texas should regulate cheerleaders in the manner it regulates steriod use among high school athletes: leaving it up to each school to decide what (if anything) to do.

Weatherford lawmaker Phil King tried to file a bill demanding steroid testing for playoff athletes. School officials lobbied against it.

Nice to see that the Texas legislature has priorities.

The Real ID Act is not law yet. Read some more objections, and then contact your representatives in Congress and tell them to vote now. The bill deserves full debate and should be a stand alone measure, not tacked on to the spending bill. The drivers' license provisions are overburdensome and the immigration provisions strip habeas corpus rights.

• Rep. Ron Paul
• Mac Raven
• Rex M

Congress is moving toward requiring states to verify whether applicants are in the U.S. legally before issuing driver's licenses.....The real story here isn't security, or even drivers licenses. It's the Federal government imposing yet another "unfunded mandate" on the states. This is where Congress sets a policy, and then demands that a lower level (state, county, city) government implement and pay for it. It amounts to a hidden Federal tax increase.

[hat tip: AOL Blog Zone]

On a related note, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is launching a big campaign to support immigration reforms, in challenge to President Bush.

TChris wrote yesterday about a 13 year old girl from a group home in Florida who wanted an abortion. The state objected. A Florida judge today ruled in the girl's favor.

....Judge Ronald Alvarez of Palm Beach County Circuit Court ruled that the girl was competent to make decisions regarding her pregnancy and had the right to do so under the state's Constitution.

The girl was represented by the ACLU and lawyer Howard Simon:

"This is another instance," Mr. Simon said, "in which state government, under the leadership of our governor, is attempting to frustrate decisions that are made within what should be a zone of personal privacy"

Update (by TChris): Florida has decided not to appeal the judge's ruling.

Bill Gates is not going to make any friends among the Minutemen or Congressmen like James Sensenbrenner and Tom Tancredo with proposals like this:

The United States should remove visa limits to allow more skilled foreign citizens to work at U.S. companies if it wants to remain a leader in technology, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday. Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the Library of Congress.

"The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense," Gates said.

by TChris

Florida's Department of Children and Families, having been thwarted in its effort to interfere in the Terri Schiavo case, is acting to prevent a 13 year old girl from exercising her constitutional right to have an abortion. The department claims the girl is too immature to decide whether to undergo the procedure, although the department doesn't seem to care whether she's sufficiently mature to give birth.

The girl, who got pregnant in a group home, now lives in foster care. When she learned of her pregnancy, she immediately told her caseworker that she wanted an abortion.

The procedure had been scheduled for last Tuesday, but then the morality police from Tallahassee arrived. That very morning, DCF lawyers filed an emergency motion with Palm Beach Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez. He signed a temporary order blocking the abortion and ordered a competency examination for [the girl].

Before the girl decided to exercise her constitutional right, nobody had suggested that she was incompetent. Not only is the department interfering with the girl's ability to exercise a constitutional right, the decision to force a young girl to have a baby she doesn't want is bad policy.

One step forward, two steps back. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made progress with his prison reform plan stressing rehabilitation over punishment, only to step in it bigtime by inviting the Minutemen to patrol California's borders.

No wonder his approval rating has dropped from 60% to 47% in the past three months. The ACLU weighs in here. The Mexican Government here.

Perhaps the Governor already sees the error of his ways. He is now tempering his support for the Minutemen.

by TChris

According to students at Santa Monica High School, the school administration has done little to address persistent racism within the school district. A coalition of students of color has decided to tackle the problem by creating a ten point plan to attack the root causes of racial violence.

The document calls for a variety of reforms that include more people of color in faculty and administrative positions, teaching conflict resolution and role modeling, using discipline in ways that “focus less on punishment and more on transformation” and instituting “culturally relevant teaching practices in every course” to “de-colonialize the curriculum.”

The plan comes "two weeks after inter-racial strife erupted into a lunchtime melee" at the school. The students contend that the school administration has long ignored the racial tension that underlies incidents of violence within the school district.

There's a new law in Houston, banning offensive odors in libraries, that critics say target the homeless:

Library officials said people have been using the libraries as temporary shelters, restaurants and changing stations. The new ordinance prohibits sleeping on tables, eating, using restrooms for bathing and "offensive bodily hygiene that constitutes a nuisance to others." Two council members voted against the ordinance, saying it was a direct attack on the homeless.

Just in case you thought no one was listening....

The number of secret court-authorized wiretaps across the country surged by 19 percent last year, records show. As law enforcement authorities scurried to keep apace of improving technology favored by criminals, not a single application was denied.

State and federal judges approved 1,710 applications for wiretaps of wire, oral or electronic communications last year, and four states - New York, California, New Jersey and Florida - accounted for three out of every four surveillance orders, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That agency is required to collect the figures and report them to Congress.

And these numbers don't included FISA applications for national security wiretaps, which also reached a record number of 1,764 last year. One more unsettling statistic:

Most of the wiretap applications, some 1,507 wiretaps, targeted portable devices, such as cell phones and pagers.

Microsoft's Bill Gates says he is reconsideringthe company's decision last week not to support a Washington state bill that would protect gays from housing, employment and other discrimination - for next year. We wrote about the furor the decision caused here.

Unfortunately, the bill has already been voted down in Washington this year. It lost by one vote.