Get real on licenses
Start to comply with REAL ID, for citizens’ sake
The federal and state governments are in a standoff over how driver’s licenses should be designed, how much driver information should be shared nationally and whether that sharing would intrude on civil liberties or personal privacy. Both sides have acted unprofessionally. Both are responsible for putting millions of Pennsylvanians in a quandary that could restrict access to air travel and some federal facilities. They are jointly responsible for fixing the problem they created and for apologizing to the innocent Pennsylvanians who have become the pawns in their schoolyard dispute.
In 2005, with 9/11 still an active memory, Congress passed a law requiring that states include certain security features on driver’s licenses, abide by certain identification verification practices and share driver information, among other provisions. As Congress is wont to do, it passed the law without taking into account the impact on civil liberties and without giving states money to implement the mandate, called REAL ID.
So a number of states, including Pennsylvania, told the feds to take a hike. In 2012, at the behest of state Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, the Legislature passed the provocatively titled “Real ID Nonparticipation Act.” Just a few paragraphs long, it forbade the governor and executivebranch agencies from complying with the federal law. Perhaps hinting at the Legislature’s real intention, it also invited the governor or state attorney general to sue the federal government to overturn the measure.
At the time, Pennsylvania was the largest of 16 states that had taken steps to thwart the federal measure, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, a critic of REAL ID. “REAL ID is dead,” said Andy Hoover, legislative director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, asserting that the program turned on states’ buy-in.
Not quite. If federal bureaucrats are good at one thing, it is hunkering down and holding course. Most states surrendered or, Mr. Hoover said, reached some sort of compromise with the federal government over the years. Pennsylvania never sued.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent letters to five holdouts — Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maine, Oklahoma and South Carolina — that effectively said: “Time’s up.” Beginning early next year, the feds said, residents of those statements no longer will be able to use driver’s licenses to enter certain federal buildings. In 2018, they said, residents of holdout states won’t be able to use driver’s licenses to board commercial airplanes, either, meaning some passengers would have to use passports even for domestic travel.
The federal government insists that REAL ID doesn’t create the kind of national ID card system long frowned upon by Americans. (Of course, this is the same government that after 9/ 11 allowed Americans to be subject to digital surveillance, so citizens would be forgiven for having trust issues.) Pennsylvania says it can’t afford what it now estimates to be the $250 million to $300 million cost of implementing new driver’s licenses (remarkably higher than the $100 million estimate in 2006).
Mr. Hoover said the feds have shown a willingness to compromise with some states that had reservations, so that is reason to be hopeful. But there’s still no sense of urgency in Harrisburg, at least not that the public can notice. PennDOT says its hands are tied because of Mr. Folmer’s law. Mr. Folmer accused the feds of “saber rattling.” House GOP spokesman Steve Miskin decried the lack of a quick fix and added, incredulously, “Obviously, doing nothing is an option.”
No, the federal and state governments should find common ground and do it now. Because whatever the pros and cons of REAL ID, Congress certainly didn’t intend to leave millions of Pennsylvanians twisting in the wind.