Old foes unite against Real ID
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | April 23, 2007 | Editorial

An especially expensive and ill-conceived federal initiative has managed to unite red and blue states; lawmakers as ideologically far apart as Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and John Sununu, R-N.H.; and organizations ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Cato Institute.

At issue is the 2005 Real ID Act, which requires every state to replace all driver's licenses by 2013 with ones including an individual's name, address, date of birth, gender, signature, driver's license number, a digital photograph and features to prevent counterfeiting. Under the act, those licenses only could be issued after the state had verified a form of photo identification, a document showing date of birth, proof of Social Security number, and a document giving the applicant's name and address.

Once all that information was compiled, it would be fed into databases that would store everyone's identity for future verifications.

Estimated costs include $14.6 billion for states, $7.9 billion for individuals and $617 million for the federal government. To help pay those costs, Congress has appropriated $40 million, which is like giving someone a doily to cover a king-size bed.

Last week, Montana (red) and Washington (blue) decided they'd had enough. The governors of those states signed laws banning their motor vehicle departments from participating in the program. In signing her state's law, Washington's Gov. Christine Gregoire called the Real ID Act "another unfunded mandate from the federal government." She said her state would need an additional $250 million just to start complying with the act. Another 28 states reportedly are considering similar proposals.

Sens. Akaka and Sununu have introduced legislation to repeal the Real ID Act, a measure endorsed by the ACLU and Cato Institute. Connecticut's senators, Democrats Joseph I. Lieberman and Chris Dodd, should support the Akaka-Sununu repeal measure -- assuming that Dodd can tear himself away from the cheering multitudes generated by his multimillion-dollar presidential campaign long enough to drop in on the Senate.