A cynical law
Toolbox
Published: January 20, 2007
The state has revealed the cost to Vermonters for the latest effort by the federal government to shift to the states the burden of running the nation — and paying for its operation.
The current example is the new REAL ID cards that Congress have mandated for drivers across the country. As reported in Friday's Rutland Herald, the federal government dropped its national identification card into the lap of the states — without paying for the new mandate. The law, passed in 2005 by legislators now dumped out on their collective ear, calls for state motor vehicle registries to authoritatively verify a person's identification before issuing a "REAL ID" validated driver's license.
That isn't onerous in the simplest cases: A person born in a Vermont hospital would bring in a standard birth certificate that a state employee could easily verify.
But what about a citizen with a birth certificate from Alaska? Hawaii? Guam? Saudi Arabia? The U.S.S.R.? Each will look a little different. Some will be printed in foreign languages. And some will not be verifiable. In the case of the former Soviet Union, we're dealing with a country that no longer exists.
And what of those legal immigrants or naturalized citizens seeking refuge from repression in their birthplace? Will they be denied the right to drive in the United States because they fled without sufficient documentation? Or will they have to go through a laborious process every time they renew their license simply because of where they were born? The Constitution guarantees every citizen equal treatment, and the REAL ID standard would institute two classes of citizens in a discriminatory and real-world way.
Drivers' licenses should be just that: A license to drive a motor vehicle.
But drivers' licenses have become the de facto standard personal ID in the absence of some form of national identity document. Clearly, without such identification, providing security is more complicated. But there's a tradeoff — security versus the right of an American citizen to carry on one's business without first being entered into a vast, national database.
If Congress wants to force every American to carry a standard ID card, Congress should pass a law saying so. But the tradeoff was a dilemma for the Republican majority that passed the REAL ID law, because while they loudly proclaimed themselves the only party committed to national security, they also supported individual freedom and small government, or at least said they did. So by pushing the ID card mess off as a state's option — compliance is "voluntary," but if a state doesn't comply, its citizens won't be able to use drivers' licenses to get into a federal building or onto an airplane — Congress ducked the issue of a "mandatory" national ID, while in fact creating just such a system. And it ducked paying to implement its newest law. Vermont estimates the cost at $2 million; nationwide, it's $11 billion the states will have to find and the feds won't.
It's a cynical law, passed by the most corrupt and cynical Congress this nation has ever seen, and the new Congress should either repeal it and start over, or at the least amend the law to recognize it as what it is — a mandatory personal ID card — and pay for its implementation.
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