PHOENIX — Calling Gov. Jan Brewer‘s action “mean spirited” and a “mistake,” Fred DuVal promised Monday if he is elected he will rescind the executive order denying driver’s licenses to “dreamers.”
“Forty eight states allow dreamers to drive,” the Democrat gubernatorial candidate said during a debate in Phoenix. “We should join the rest of the nation.”
But Republican Doug Ducey said he backs Brewer’s 2012 decision to deny licenses to the nearly 21,000 Arizonans who have been accepted into the federal government’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“I am going to have respect and compassion for everyone,” Ducey said.
“But I don’t think anyone gets the privileges and benefits of hardworking Arizona families, that are paid for by hardworking Arizona taxpayers,” he said. “We’re a nation of immigrants and we’re a nation of laws.”
People are also reading…
Other highlights in the fourth of five debates the pair have agreed to include:
• Ducey, for the first time, said he would veto any bid by the Republican-controlled Legislature to repeal the expansion of Medicaid pushed through last year by Brewer. He said while he is opposed to “Obamacare,” that program will fund Arizona’s expansion for at least the next three years and he wants those dollars to keep coming.
• DuVal chided Ducey for refusing to publicly release details of his sale of Cold Stone Creamery in 2007, when the buyers demanded arbitration because they said the company was worth only a fraction of what he claimed. Ducey has not disputed the $80 million sales price had to be renegotiated to a fraction of that, but said there’s no reason to discuss it now because the buyers are now happy.
• Both candidates favored reforms in campaign finance laws to require “dark money” groups to identify contributors, neither laid out specific legislation to accomplish that goal.
After the Obama administration approved Deferred Action program, allowing those who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children to seek permission not only to stay but also to work, Brewer directed the state Motor Vehicle Division not to issue licenses to the recipients.
She said they do not meet the requirements of a 1996 Arizona law that says only people “authorized” to be in this country can get licenses.
Immigrant rights groups sued. The case is pending.
DuVal said it’s time to end the lawsuit.
“These dreamers are part of our community,” he said. “They’ve been raised here, they’ve been successful. They’ve served in the military or are going to school.”
He said it is in the state’s interest to license them so they can contribute to Arizona’s economy. And, if nothing else, he said it means they are more likely to have state-mandated liability insurance.
Ducey said he sees the issue from the perspective of “how we got here.” That, he said, starts with the failure of the federal government to “do its first duty to Arizona” to secure the border.
Ducey deflected a question by host Ted Simons, who questioned whether the governor’s move is divisive. Instead, he said the first priority has to be border security.
“And then we can deal with some of the other issues around immigration,” Ducey said.
Libertarian Barry Hess, who has not been in prior debates, said that, like DuVal, he sees the issue in practical terms: A license is needed to get insurance.
“People are still going to drive, except they’re going to drive uninsured,” he said. “That’s a big issue these days.”
On the question of how Arizona should handle court rulings lawmakers illegally ignored a voter-approved mandate to annually boost state aid to schools to account for inflation, DuVal wants to take a deal offered by schools to settle for $317 million increase in the base funding formula while Ducey wants to continue to appeal to look for a better deal.
By contrast, Hess wants to ask voters to repeal the entire funding formula.
“It’s not about money,” he said of education quality, calling the education system “bloated.” He said a cheaper — and better — alternative would be more distance learning through alternative to the traditional “brick-and-mortar” school house.
John Mealer, the candidate of the Americans Elect Party, used the opportunity to promote legalizing hemp as a replacement for rubber and fiberglass and to create biofuels, and also backed legalized recreational use of marijuana and “tax it as we do alcohol.”
