Real ID Debate Faces Possible Legislative Limbo

A 2005 US legislative mandate for states to begin the process of converting drivers' licenses and personally identifying documents lives on, despite measures taken by the Senate last week that were hailed by Real ID's opponents as steps toward its eventual repeal.

Last Thursday, the Senate voted to table an amendment (to set aside from discussion...in this case, indefinitely) offered by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R - Tenn.) to appropriate $300 million in federal funds to assist states in making the long, difficult transition. But a recent revision to a revision of a Dept. of Homeland Security cost estimate for Real ID implementation sets the bar at about $23 million for all 50 states, and presumably US territories including Puerto Rico and Guam, to comply with the federal mandate.

But was Sen. Alexander's amendment designed to succeed? Although Congress' $40 existing appropriations were considered a drop in the bucket, the senator was probably as well read on the DHS report as most any other Internet user. Three hundred million dollars may have been a larger drop in that same bucket.

When the amendment was introduced to the Senate floor last Wednesday, Alexander issued a statement that left several doors open for him to change his stance on the entire federal program his amendment would have funded. "Some in Washington have a bad habit of taking credit for an idea and then sending the bill to the states and letting the governors worry about how they will pay for it," he stated. "That is why to date 17 states - including Tennessee - have passed legislation opposing the Real ID Act. I believe Congress has the responsibility to find the money to pay for this or repeal it."

With everyone including Alexander knowing $300 million wasn't nearly enough - far less than the $1 billion the National Governors' Association agreed would be a minimum commitment for the federal government to truly take Real ID seriously - one could argue that passage of the amendment could have been a symbolic step along the way to Real ID's repeal - option #2 on Alexander's list.

Openly defeating the amendment would have required having a full debate on the measure, which would have forced senators to address the question of where the funding for Real ID must come from, if not through this appropriation. Tabling the amendment avoided that nasty possibility, giving opponents such as the ACLU reason to cheer without necessarily painting senators into that corner.

If the Senate wanted to repeal the Real ID provisions, it has had plenty of opportunity since last February, when Sen. Daniel Akaka (D - Hawaii) introduced a bill to do just that. That bill has yet to be introduced in committee.

Last month, critical immigration legislation would have forced states to adopt a system, probably by 2013, in which Real ID-compliant identification would be used by all employees - citizens or otherwise - seeking employment in the US. That legislation went down to defeat - some say, went down in flames.

But what sank it was more likely provisions sought by President Bush that some said amounted to amnesty for many non-registered immigrants, instead of anything having to do with Real ID. Prior to that legislative calamity, however, amendments to the bill that would have struck its Real ID-related provisions survived motions to close debate.

As a result, supporters of the immigration legislation may have been given reason to oppose it in its amended form, claiming that had the Real ID provisions been struck, the bill would have lost some of its "teeth."

With that as an historical model, there are two questions worth asking: 1) Was the Alexander amendment last week truly designed to support Real ID? 2) Was tabling the amendment truly a signal of opposition to it?

Evidence of further ambiguity as to the answer to those questions came last Friday. After the Senate's passage the day before of the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2008, none other than Lamar Alexander was named one of the conferees for negotiations with the House of Representatives over its DHS appropriations. Will the topic of funding for Real ID be raised in conference? If it isn't, perhaps Alexander's motives weren't what many thought they were.