DMV scofflaws imposing ‘Real ID’

Scores of people responded to last week's column, reporting they, too, were told they "had the wrong name" when they went to renew their Nevada driver's licenses.

Perhaps the most moving was that of an 83-year-old woman who moved here from Colorado to help her brother, who's in a wheelchair and often can't drive.

Turns out the error-prone federal Social Security database links Vivian's number to her maiden name. But she uses the surname of her second husband, who died four years ago. That name is on her current Colorado driver's license, which is about to expire.

"They told me to go to the Social Security office and have my name changed back to my maiden name," she said. "But I'm a Catholic. I believe I married my husband for life. I'm still married to him even though he died four years ago. Why should I give up his name, now?"

The DMV refused to accept Vivian's marriage license because it was issued by the church, signed and sealed by the priest who performed the marriage.

"A church document isn't acceptable as ID," confirms Tom Jacobs, the DMV flack who took my call when I tried to reach DMV Director Bruce Breslow. "There's something wrong with that story," Jacobs asserted. "There has to be a government document on file in the town where she was married."

Nope. Vivian said she had her nephew go down to the Office of Vital Statistics in Colorado Springs, Colo. -- no such document. So she spent $72 getting her picture taken at the post office and sending in her only birth certificate to the State Department in hopes they'll send her a "passport card" the DMV might accept -- though she has only a few days left till her license expires.

The most repulsive letters I got last week argued I had no right to criticize the DMV because "It's the law. They're just following orders."

But the DMV is not obeying the law. The DMV is violating the law, or -- at best -- choosing to obey only the parts they like.

"During my last session, we blocked the federal 'Real ID' from going through in Nevada," former state Sen. Bob Beers told me last week.

Although the 2007 Nevada Legislature did authorize approximately $750,000 to allow the DMV to begin meeting "REAL ID" benchmarks, that same Legislature also "passed a resolution ... urging Congress to repeal the act," (citing cost and driver inconvenience) "and during the 2009 Nevada legislative session, the Real ID implementation bill died before reaching the Assembly," confirms Rebecca Gasca of the Nevada ACLU.

Last year, Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Kelvin Atkinson told the Reno News & Review, "We definitely didn't fund it, and we were delaying it, waiting to see what the feds were going to instruct us to do because a lot of people felt like it was more than likely going away. ... What we did was totally put it on the back burner."

Lacking legislative approval, Gov. Jim Gibbons -- who as a congressman voted twice for "Real ID," which would turn state driver's licenses into national identification cards -- in 2010 signed an emergency executive order instructing the DMV to begin issuing "Real ID-compliant" licenses, claiming the federal TSA grope squad might not allow Nevadans on airplanes if their state IDs didn't match the new federal standards.

In fact, the Obama administration has backed away from any such unconstitutional threats.

"I think that's bad faith," says the ACLU's Gasca. "I mean, if they didn't actually need the Legislature, then why was it considered by the Legislature? The DMV tried, multiple times, to have the Legislature consider pieces of (Real ID) legislation. ... It was soundly rejected."

So-called "emergency" orders like Gibbons' are good for only 120 days. So the DMV ran out of any justification to issue the new licenses in April 2010.

What's their current excuse? Jacobs simply claims they're no longer issuing Real-ID-compliant licenses.

"You went back to the 2009 Legislature looking for authorization to go forward, and they turned you down?" I asked him.

"Correct, the Legislature was unwilling to do that so the governor gave us (temporary) authority. But the emergency regulations expired, so we stopped doing it and we have not issued a Real ID-compliant driver's license since April 2010."

Funny. Several DMV employees at the North Decatur office told me last week, "We're doing this because of the new federal law ... because of 9/11," and "The federal government is having us do this so no one can steal your identity."

"You're requiring that names match the Social Security database, which matches the Real ID requirement?" I asked Mr. Jacobs.

Yes, he says, but only because "it's good security; we've been doing that for about three years now, since we got the capability."

"You're now requiring drivers who wear glasses to take their glasses off for their photos, just like 'Real ID' asks you to do, for the facial recognition software?"

"Yes, that's for the facial recognition," he confirmed.

"You're now storing a duplicate file copy of that photo, just as 'Real ID' requires?"

"Yes," but that's just a coincidence, Jacobs insists.

"The new licenses require a full residential address, where a mailing address used to suffice, they have a scannable bar code on the back that could in future be used to encode almost anything ... how the heck are these not the 'Real IDs' that the Legislature told you not to create?"

In the first place, the 2007 legislative vote condemning "Real ID" and urging that it be repealed was "non-binding," Mr. Jacobs contends. And the way current DMV procedure differs from what "Real ID" would have required is that they're not "electronically archiving" the support documents motorists present, such as birth certificates.

Oh, whoop-de-doo.

Ms. Gasca told the News & Review it's the DMV that's pushed Real ID all along, applying for grants (more than $5 million worth, Mr. Jacobs bragged to me) and changing cost estimates to move implementation along, all in defiance of the 2007 Legislature's resolution opposing "Real ID."

During public hearings on the proposed changes, not one Nevadan testified in favor of adopting "Real ID."

The DMV is part of the executive branch, so called because they can only "execute" laws enacted by the Legislature. They are granted no leeway to decide that a legislative joint resolution can be ignored because they "must have had their facts wrong."

The Legislature or Gov. Brian Sandoval -- or both -- should order the DMV to cut the crap.

They claim they stopped obeying the "Real ID" edicts a year ago. Fine. Unless they can show that a nickname, middle name or married name is being used for purposes of fraud, instruct them that Social Security numbers are confidential between U.S. citizens and that federal department; the DMV has no right to ask for them, and no one has to "go get their name changed."

Instruct them to renew current or recently expired driver's licenses in the name originally issued. Instruct them to seek only a mailing address suitable for sending renewal notices -- our house or apartment numbers have nothing to do with our right to drive.

Illegals are driving around with bogus IDs and not getting arrested; none of this will inconvenience an illegal with a fake ID for as much as a minute.

The Legislature said "No." So stop telling us you're "just obeying the law." You're not.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal, and author of the novel "The Black Arrow" and "Send in the Waco Killers." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com.