REAL ID sees nationwide state government compliance ahead of deadline, but it wasn’t always that way

While all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories are all currently in compliance ahead of the federal deadline of May 7, REAL ID was once roundly opposed by several state governments.

As soon as two years after the law’s 2005 passage by President George W. Bush, several state leaders had already expressed objections to complying with the nationwide standard.

Then-Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, called REAL ID a “harebrained scheme” in a 2008 NPR interview.

“[W]e are putting up with the federal government on so many fronts, and nearly every month they come out with another… unfunded mandate to tell us that our life is going to be better if we’ll just buckle under on some other kind of rule or regulation,” Schweitzer said.

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“And we usually just play along for a while, we ignore them for as long as we can, and we try not to bring it to a head. But if it comes to a head, we found that it’s best to just tell them to go to hell and run the state the way you want to run your state.”

One year prior, Schweitzer signed a law banning Montana’s DMV from enforcing REAL ID stipulations, calling it a “threat to privacy” in a letter to then-Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, also a Democrat. 

Not too far west in Washington state, fellow Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire signed similar legislation that required the feds to appropriate $250 million to cover the unfunded mandate.

“[E]ven worse, it doesn’t protect the privacy of the citizens of Washington,” Gregoire claimed when signing the bill.

On the Republican side, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed a law in 2008 halting PennDOT’s implementation of REAL ID.

“Neither the governor nor the Department of Transportation or any other Commonwealth agency shall participate in the REAL ID Act of 2005 or regulations promulgated thereunder,” Act 38’s text read.

The policy was later reversed by Act 3 of 2017, signed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

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Meanwhile, New Jersey has the lowest reported compliance with REAL ID, according to a CBS News analysis, with only 17% of the population having one – and many complaining of not enough bandwidth for the state to handle the number of applications.

On Wednesday, Kentucky Republican state Sen. Jimmy Higdon, wrote to DHS asking for an extension to the May 7 enforcement date, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

State compliance with REAL ID means that a state has met the federal security standards outlined by DHS for the actual issuance of drivers’ licenses. Since all states have done so, they are considered compliant. 

Because the program is optional for the licenseholder – due to the alternatives, like passports – an insufficient proportion of residents not having REAL IDs does not affect statistical state compliance.

REAL ID requirements, endeavored out of a post-9/11 national security law from then-Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., dictate that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will no longer accept a photo-ID that does not have a star in the upper corner denoting verification, unless it is a passport. 

To become verified, Americans must provide Social Security information or other personal identifiers.

The law’s implementation date has been delayed several times, due to COVID and concerns about varied state compliance and states’ abilities to summon the necessary resources to meet federal standards.

Fox News Digital reached out for comment from the current governors of the three states referenced: Democrat Bob Ferguson of Washington, Republican Greg Gianforte of Montana and Democrat Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.