Carbon Copy Laws

David Weigel at Reason’s Hit and Run blog comments on Gov. Blunt’s plan to keep illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses, and on his promise to punish anyone who helps them get licenses illegally:

Are there fifth columnists in the Missouri DMV who are handing out licenses to people with fistfuls of pesos and kindly winks? If not, it’s already illegal to forge drivers’ licenses, but under-21s try […] Will Jefferson City be cracking down on all of them? Just the ones who help out illegal immigrants?

Weigel makes a good point. MIssouri doesn’t grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants now, and we already have laws against fake applications and forging licenses. If a few people manage to get licenses illegally under the current system, new laws about it aren’t going to stop them. We should concentrate on better enforcing our existing laws, not passing duplicate ones.