There are big happenings in California. The state has started issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented residents. It is creating quite a stir. But this makes no sense to me. You see, I thought that California had been doing that for decades. I was kind of right. When I left California for Oregon back in 1990, the state did indeed issue driver’s licenses without people showing proof of citizenship. But that all ended in 1993 when I was involved in solving huge systems of differential equations. It never occurred to me that the state would stop doing this. But like most people, I tend to mistake my liberal home in the Bay Area for the not-so liberal state of California. This is, after all, the state that in 2008 simultaneously voted in Obama as president and voted to deny same sex couples the right to marry.

Michael Hiltzik did us the favor of running down the history that I missed, California’s Huge Blow Against Stupidity About Immigrant Driver’s Licenses. This was during the early 1990s when Californians had a collective freak out about unauthorized residents in the state. Let’s be clear: it was flat out racism. Just as Reagan’s “welfare queen” was clearly a black woman, California’s “illegals” were Mexicans. And this issue was aggressively demagogued by one of the worst people in the world, Pete Wilson.

This all led to Proposition 187 in 1994 — a ballot initiative that deprived non-citizens from things like healthcare and education. It was a vile law and it won the state by almost 18 percentage points. And typically, the only place the bill failed was in the Bay Area (along with Yolo County, which is almost in the Bay Area). The law was found unconstitutional, but the fight against the evil brown people continued.

The “no driver’s licenses for illegals” law stayed in effect under Wilson. After Gray Davis became governor, he reversed the law in 2003 (in a cynical and unsuccessful ploy to appeal to the Latino community). But after Arnold Schwarzenegger got in the governor’s mansion, he reversed that (in a cynical and successful ploy to appeal to the white community). So for a little more than a decade, non-citizens have not been able to get driver’s licenses. So it is good that yet again we are allowing driver’s licenses regardless of legal residency status.

People have their reasons for being against providing these licenses. And the law addresses these reasons. But the truth is that not providing licenses to undocumented residents is really just about getting “those people.” A lot of people are upset about this development. But why? It isn’t that undocumented residents won’t drive without a license. This new law is a practical measure that makes us all safer and save us money. But I suspect that it is much like the death penalty, which is also hugely popular in the “liberal” state of California. It doesn’t matter that the death penalty doesn’t work as a deterrent. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make us safer. It doesn’t matter that it costs a lot more than the alternative. Practical concerns never matter when people are being ruled by fear and hate.

Thankfully, California has taken a step forward in terms of practical policy over the politics of division. We will see how long it lasts.