Department of Motor Vehicles

Here's Senator Marty Golden with some family members of people killed on September 11th at a press conference urging Governor Spitzer not to ease requirements for getting a driver license. The issue flared up briefly during the gubernatorial campaign, with Spitzer's spokesperson telling the AP that restricting access to licenses "does nothing to improve security." Critics said that the changes would help illegal immigrants and terrorists.

With Spitzer settling into office, immigrant advocates are now wondering not if but when he'll get around to making those changes.

When one speaker was asked during the press conference today what Spitzer said that he found objectionable, he was handed a piece of paper and read a quote Spitzer made to reporters from Asian media outlets back in June:

"Change the policy. It's that simple. DMV's policies could change and they should change. I don't believe and never believed that limiting access to a drivers license which as you rightly point out is necessary to; you need a license to move to go to a job to earn an income and saying to people that we will limit the opportunity seems to me to be the worst way, a backwards way to accomplish anything."

The guy who handed him the paper, incidentally, was Bill O'Reilly (pictured above in the fedora), a consultant hired to work on this issue by the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License. O'Reilly works for the firm that consulted for John Faso in the governor's race, and seems to be making good use here of the fruits of Faso's oppo tracking.

UPDATE: Spitzer's office just issued the following statement to the Times-Union:

"This is a complex issue which we are reviewing carefully. Before moving forward with any proposal we would do an exhaustive review all security related maters."

-- Azi Paybarah

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Hillary is creating her own voter database list that could rival the ones at the RNC and DNC, reports The Post. 2008 anyone?

Heading to Albany is a lawsuit over the DMV's ban of political messages on license plates, according to AM New York.

At a breakfast with business leaders, Tom Suozzi notes that the living wage bill he signed for his county wouldn't be good for every county, according to The Times.

--Azi Paybarah

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