The REAL ID Act is a federal law that calls on states to knit their driver licensing systems together into a national ID. Congress passed it nine years ago yesterday, setting a three-year deadline for state compliance.
You might think that a program would be dead if it failed to materialize after more than triple the time Congress gave for its implementation. But REAL ID is walking dead.
After the law passed, half the states in the country passed resolutions objecting to REAL ID or laws barring their states from complying. And the Department of Homeland Security has pushed back the deadline again and again and again. But the federal government keeps funding REAL ID, and state bureaucrats keep plodding forward with the national ID system.
In a Policy Analysis released today, we examined the progress of REAL ID in states around the country. REAL ID: A State-by-State Update reveals that some states’ legislatures have backtracked on their opposition to the national ID law. Some motor vehicle bureaucrats have quietly moved forward with REAL ID compliance contrary to state policy. And in some states, motor vehicle bureaucrats have worked to undercut state policy opposing REAL ID and the national ID system.
Louisiana recently reversed course and embraced the national ID law. The District of Columbia began requiring drivers to get REAL ID-compliant licenses effective May 1st.
Funds for implementing REAL ID come from DHS annual budget, which is appropriated by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees’ homeland security subcommittees. Congress has put around $50 million a year toward REAL ID in recent years, part of $300 to $500 million a year it spends on identification and tracking programs.
The alternative is better: Congress could save money and protect liberty if it fully defunded REAL ID. State political leaders should check to see if the administrators who work under them are building a national ID contrary to state policy, or if bureaucrats are lobbying to put the legislature behind the national ID program.
It hasn’t been implemented, but because it hasn’t been repealed or defunded, REAL ID awaits the day when the political winds blow in favor of a national ID.
