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Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) wants to scrap a three-year-old anti-terrorism law that his fellow Republicans drafted in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. And with his new power in the GOP conference, he may have a chance.
Alexander’s target is the 2005 Real ID Act, which mandated that states adopt uniform federal standards for driver’s licenses. Despite the Tennessee Republican’s concerns, he was outnumbered by party colleagues who wanted to stop terrorists from exploiting loose identification laws.
This time around, Alexander has leverage. As chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, he is the third-ranking Republican in the chamber. He also has a strong ally in Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who, like most Democrats, disagrees with the law. As a former governor, Alexander also has many of the nation’s governors and state legislatures behind him. Many complain that the federal government overstepped its bounds when it enacted the legislation that included the provision and effectively passed along a huge public expense to the states.
When Congress returns next week, Alexander plans to file an amendment to the fiscal 2009 homeland security appropriations bill that would halt the program until the government finds a way to reimburse states for its cost.
“The federal government shouldn’t be able to enforce the Real ID law unless the federal government pays for it,” Alexander told The Hill. “It wasn’t properly considered in the Senate, it creates a national ID card, and it’s a massive unfunded mandate.”
In May, states must start to comply with the law’s regulations on driver’s license information standards, which the Homeland Security Department issued in January. Federal officials have repeatedly pushed back implementation of the law, however, and at least 19 states have passed measures stating their opposition.
Critics of the law see a rare opening to overturn it.
“Congress created Real ID, and they can do away with Real ID,” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author of a book on identification laws and technology. “Not a single state is going to be in compliance with the law by May, and the program has been failing from the start.”
Citing the law’s unfunded costs and big-government approach, Alexander told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a March 4 subcommittee meeting about his plans for the amendment.
Like many critics, one of Alexander’s biggest concerns is cost. He points out that while some estimates of the implementation of Real ID come to $4 billion, federal officials have appropriated only $60 million and distributed only $6 million.
Besides the costs, Alexander and other critics say Real ID is a step toward a national ID system, an unacceptable example of federalism.
Durbin says Alexander is “being honest and realistic” about the law’s costs and requirements.
“It’s a federal mandate which becomes very difficult to live up to, and very expensive,” said Durbin. “Even if I thought it was a good idea, you’d have to concede the obvious cost.”
Among its provisions, the Real ID law created national standards for information on driver’s licenses as part of an effort to create uniform requirements across all 50 states. It grew out of recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, which said the terrorists had exploited the nation’s patchwork of differing state and federal identification standards.
Congress passed the law in May 2005, but only after a tortured birth. Written by then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), it was originally planned as part of a 2004 intelligence overhaul measure before then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) removed it due to Democratic opposition. It was eventually attached to a supplemental Iraq war spending measure, which the Senate cleared 100-0, and was never given a separate hearing before being passed and signed by President Bush.
One of the bill’s biggest supporters was Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who fought his own state leaders to persuade them to support Real ID.
“We’ve seen how airplanes can be used by terrorists to damage our country and kill Americans,” Gregg told The Hill. “It’s important to have a reasonable identification that’s consistent across the country for travel … It’s not a step toward a national ID card, it’s a step towards a card which is acceptable on airlines by federal security.”
Sensenbrenner remains the top cheerleader. In an interview with The Hill, he said he understands the reluctance to embrace federal standards, but believes that such a mandate is unavoidable unless states start improving their driver’s license requirements. He also downplayed the opposition by Democrats and Republicans such as Alexander as nothing new, noting that Congress ultimately approved the measure by wide margins and that the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations were independent and bipartisan.
“Congress ignores the 9/11 Commission at their peril,” Sensenbrenner said.
Alexander, however, said he is still fuming over how the law was “stuck into the conference bill that all of us wanted to support, to fund the troops.”
“I objected as strongly as I could,” Alexander said. “But there never was a hearing [in] the Senate of any kind.”
Harper, of the Cato Institute, said such a dubious beginning to the bill may mean an early end.
“If you pass a bill without hearings, you’re going to miss stuff,” he said. “And the authors of Real ID missed a lot.” |
