More States Rebel Against Real ID Act

Spamicles writes with a link to a Lawbean post about more rebellion against the Real ID act. New Hampshire and Oklahoma have joined Montana and Washington state in passing statutes refuting the ID act's guidelines. "However, these actions could eventually lead to drivers licenses issued in these states to not be accepted as official identification when boarding airplanes or accessing federal buildings. In addition to these four states, members of the Idaho legislature intentionally left out money in the budget to comply with the Act."

Comments

What it boils down to

[Billosaur]

The Wisconsin State Journal has an incredibly good analysis of the mess. They write:

States have rebelled at the $14 billion in costs the act imposes on states, as well as worries that the new security system will invade residents' privacy and create what amounts to a national ID card.

Emphasis mine. That's what makes this so unpalatable to the states, just like "No Child Left Behind" or welfare reform. The United States Government is saying "we're going to create these standards and you are going to pay to implement them" and the states are naturally balking at having to foot the bill for Washington D.C.'s foolishness.

Re:What it boils down to

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I remember the time when Republicans complained about unfunded mandates back before they took power of the legislatures in the early 90's, now it looks like they are happy with making them.

Re:What it boils down to

[russotto]

What would happen if the airlines or other vulnerable operations refused to follow security standards, or just came up with their own?

Then we might be able to get on a plane without being treated like a fucking criminal for having a cigarette lighter or a bottle of water.

Re:What it boils down to

[pla]

The United States Government is saying "we're going to create these standards and you are going to pay to implement them" and the states are naturally balking at having to foot the bill for Washington D.C.'s foolishness.

Although you make a good point, you need to dig one layer further to see that some states object on moral (or at least, autonomy) grounds rather than merely due to funding issues...

You can break states up into "welfare" and "SugarDaddy" states (This has a very high correlation with red-vs-blue, incidentally, but I don't mean this post to start a partisan flamewar). The states that have so far objected to Real Id, almost without fail, fall among the SugarDaddy states, the ones with a net outflow of money vs federal taxes.

If your hypothesis (that most objecting states do so primarily for economic reasons) held true, then you would expect to see the exact opposite pattern among objectors/SugarDaddies. As the funding comes from the states anyway, whether directly or via the federal government, having each state pay their own way would cost the SugarDaddies less, overall.

Thus, by reductio ad absurdum, your hypothesis appears false... Though I would still applaud you for raising the point, since regardless of whether the states or the feds pay, we the people still get stuck with the bill at the end of the day (or April 15th, in this case).

Re:What it boils down to

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You'd probably get a significant increase in visitors from outside the US as well. I can't speak for terrorists, but I know that I have declined to visit the US on both professional and personal grounds since 9/11 — and not because I think terrorists are going to fly my plane into a building.

Re:What it boils down to

[aminorex]

I basically stopped flying after the first round of clampdown. I will only fly when it is strictly necessary for business, and I will usually decline business which implies flying. To do otherwise is to be complicit in the establishment of fascism and the evisceration of the rule of law. I am willing to compromise because sometimes the impact of a bloody-minded rigid adherence to single principle does more harm than good by riding roughshod over the preponderance of other principles.

Re:Big deal.

[Baba Ram Dass]

Who is it hurting? Everyone who thinks the government should obey the Constitution, for starters.

Re:Big deal.

[N3WBI3]

"Having a unified repository of ID's is something that should have been done to begin with."

Why? the delegation of identification is not, constitutionally, the purview of the federal Government and as such it falls under the 10th amendment. Just because something might be a good idea and might be useful does not mean it should be forced on the states despite clear constitutional roles. The more money and or information you give the federal government the more power you hand them.

They didn't say the changes had to be done tomorrow, and the pros outweigh the cons.

I don't think letting the federal government continue to push unfunded and unconstitutional mandates is any small measure of 'bad'.

Passports are the same throughout the states

Passports are not issued by the states

license plates are the same

No they are not EG California has a format of 1ABC234 and Minnesota has ABC-123

social security numbers are the same

Not issued by the states, they are issued by the fed for federal taxing purposes.

What's the big deal? Who is it hurting?

Evidently the states who have to let the federal government make decisions for them and the force the states to pay for it.

Basically immigrants and those who don't want to be followed by "the man".

Oh yea cause if you don't have anything to hide why would you be against repealing the unlawful search and seizure provisions of the constitution. I am assuming you mean illegal immigrants who don't want to be tracked and if they are already here illegally why in the heck would this stop them.

Re:Airlines

[wytcld]

I'm perfectly willing to carry my passport when boarding airplanes or visiting the White House. What I don't want is to have a driver's license that ends up all RFID'd (and you know they'll ask for that next if they aren't already), so that I can be easily spied on when I'm going about my business on the ground and outside the precincts of the Feds. My driver's license already is cross linked with all sorts of stuff - bank accounts, insurance policies, &c. - that my passport isn't (at least the firms only ask for driver's license # not passport). It works well enough as is for my purposes, and the purposes of those I do business with.

And if you can afford an airline ticket, you can certainly afford a passport - which is a lot better than making even people who never fly pay more for a passport-level driver's license. As a side benefit, holding a passport may even lead more people to get out and explore the wider world, and get beyond the parochial American point-of-view on a few things.

Re:Big deal.

[bar-agent]

So, civil services and social security are non-constitutional because they're not run by each state?

Yes, they are, but at this point it is too late to end those programs at the federal level and replace them with state programs. Which is too bad. I, for one, would like to see some states take a more Canadian approach to public services while other states take a more free-market approach, and compare and contrast the results. States have a powerful function as "laboratories of democracy," as I believe someone said. And once a few states work out the initial bugs in their plans, other states can implement the best solutions, and everyone would be better off.

Re:Good!

[Aqua_boy17]

While I agree with you in principle, the unfortunate reality is that the federal government will probably wind up blackmailing non-compliant states into submission.

I'm old enough to remember the country-wide 55 mph. federal mandate that was put in place durng to the last energy crises. States that did not comply with the mandated maximum speed limit (I think Wyoming was one) lost their federal funding for highways and transportation.

OTOH, we already have a federal ID. It's called a passport. Washington can (and has) changed regulations and requirements for passports. They should leave drivers' licenses and state issued ID's alone.

Re:Good!

[MobyDisk]

I think this is a scenario in Game Theory. And the states played it wrong.

Scenario: Big guy tries to coerce the little guys into doing something they don't want to do by offering them a competitive advantage. This type of coercion cannot work if all the little guys agree not to acccept the advantage. They remain on equal footing. But if one of them does, they all must do so or be left at a competitive disadvantage. The mafia works the same way, and it only works because of human greed. The states were accepted the "federal funding" deals from the government. This happens on highways, schools, etc. Now they are stuck - they can't go back now, but they don't want to comply with the ever-increasing dirty deeds they must perform. It's exactly how the mafia works. If nobody paid the protection money in the first place, we would all be better off.

Re:Big deal.

[Shakrai]

States have a powerful function as "laboratories of democracy," as I believe someone said

That would be Louis Brandeis, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor had a similar thought process in her dissent in Gonzales v. Raich: "Federalism promotes innovation by allowing for the possibility that "a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

Where are those justices when you need them?

Re:Airlines

[JustNilt]

It's not an expense issue that makes me object the the passport issue. The main issue for many folks is the lead time required. I have a passport personally as well but let's say I don't for a moment. I'm self employed and don't plan my schedule four months out, generally.

Say I find my wife and I both manage to have a weekend off at the same time our son's visiting his grandmother. If we needed a passport to board a flight and one of us didn't have one, we'd be unable to take a spur of the moment flight up to the San Juan islands from Seattle, where we live. Well crap, there goes that romantic weekend. Say, for example, a relative in Florida dies. If you lack a passport, you're supposed to miss a funeral?! Bah.

The issue is what right the federal government has to say what MY state decides is appropriate information to determine I am who I say I am? I'm pretty sure that's not a power granted to the federal government in the US Constitution. The right to travel freely within my nation's borders is potentially at risk. This is not a small issue yet many don't really seem to get it. This is a basic freedom.

This law will be challenged as unconstitutional if it's not overturned before it's supposed to be enforced, mark my words.