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The Oregon House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that prevents illegal immigrants from obtaining an Oregon driver's license.

The state Senate passed the same legislation -- Senate Bill 1080 -- earlier this week.

Rep. Ben Cannon, D-Portland, spoke against the legislation, saying it would not help fight fraud.

"Immigrants don't come to this country to get a driver's license, and they will not leave because they are ineligible for one," Cannon said. "Undocumented workers will continue to drive, but they will not be tested to ensure they know the rules of the road."

Do Oregonians have a fundamental right to effective, affordable health care?

That question threw the Oregon House into a lofty and philosophical debate for more than an hour Wednesday before it voted 31-29 along strict party lines in favor of referring it to the November ballot.

"This experience has come closest to resembling what I imagined a Legislature to be in my young and idealistic days," said Rep. Ben Cannon, D-Portland. He weighed in by saying rights are grounded in allowing "us to deliberate over and choose a good life for ourselves." Health care would qualify as one such right, he said.

At the 1908 National Governor's Conference in Washington D.C., Theodore Roosevelt - my favorite president - said to the assembled state executives that the issue of conservation "is the chief material question that confronts us, second only - and second always - to the great fundamental questions of morality."

Well said, of course.

And while Oregon's 2007 Legislature largely avoided issues of morality, we did have the courage to tackle meaningful environmental and conservation reform.

...Rep. Ben Cannon and I also introduced legislation for a carbon cap-and-trade program.