“Biggest … Lie … Ever”

A friend and supporter of my work on REAL ID sent me a link to this WebMemo from the Heritage Foundation, entitled "All Aboard: Fifty States Now Compliant with Real ID." I'm using the subject line of his email as the title of this post.

There certainly seems to be confusion in some quarters about REAL ID's current status. Let's take a brief look at how states stand in terms of compliance.

Because not a single state will comply with REAL ID on the statutory deadline, May 11th, the Department of Homeland Security has been giving out deadline extensions willy-nilly the last few months. It gave extensions just for the asking to states that have statutorily barred themselves from complying, for example.

Some states refused to even ask for extensions. When this happened, DHS quickly switched to issuing states extensions if the states were independently changing their driver's licensing processes in ways that would meet any of the requirements of REAL ID. States like Montana and New Hampshire wrote to DHS expressing no intention to comply with the law, but stating what they had done on their own. These DHS interpreted as requests for extensions, and granted them.

When the governor of Maine last week finally sent DHS a letter stating his intention to submit legislation relating to REAL ID compliance, the DHS took that as a request for an extension and granted it. The Maine legislature will have to consider any such bills, of course. Maine's is the legislature that was the first in the country to reject REAL ID.

Getting deadline extensions by hook and by crook out to all 50 states is a pretty long way from getting all 50 states to comply. The actual state of things is reflected well on this map, maintained at the ACLU-run Web site RealNightmare.org. It shows seven states still self-barred from complying, and many others protesting the law. An eighth - Idaho - recently saw legislation barring compliance with REAL ID move through the Senate and to the governor's desk.