California Edges Toward Joining Real ID Revolt

The Department of Homeland Security's Real ID program has a real challenge on its hands from California. DHS had said it will only grant extensions from the Real ID rules taking effect on May 11 to states that apply by March 31 and promise to implement Real ID by 2010. California requested an extension but would not make the latter promise. DHS buckled and said, in effect, "Good enough." Perhaps they realized that trying to slap giant California around is qualitatively different than doing the same to New Hampshire. In another crack in the wall. DHS has granted Montana a waiver it explicitly did not ask for. From Wired: "For a short moment Thursday, millions of Californians were in danger of facing pat-downs at the airport and being blocked from federal buildings come May 11... DHS had said before Thursday it won't grant Real ID extensions to states who don't commit to implementing the rules in the future. That meant Tuesday's letter looked like enough to join California to the small rebellion against the Real ID rules. For Californians that would mean enduring the same fate facing citizens of South Carolina, Maine, Montana, and New Hampshire... [A]fter Threat Level provided Homeland Security spokesman Laura Keehner with the letter, Keehner said California's commitment to thinking about commitment is good enough."

Re:Did the MT extension had anything to with this?

[zappepcs]

Not only is that insightful, but brilliantly used. People get all wishy washy when libertarians talk about state's rights. Uhmmmm this is one of those times folks, where state's rights protect your own rights. For some truly interesting reading you might try this link I saw yesterday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia [wikipedia.org] It's a long read but I think an important one when you consider what the Federal government is trying to foist upon us all. The entire notion of ID kind of falls apart when you actually dig into the constitution and laws which govern this country, your state, and local municipality... at least here in the US.

Re:Jorbs, they be taking mine

[BadAnalogyGuy]

See the Citizenship and National Origin sections: http://hr.albany.edu/content/legalqtn.asp [albany.edu]

It is illegal to do what you are suggesting above.

Damn that commy cut and paste buffer

[zappepcs]

Here is the link I meant to put in the post above: http://phoenix.craigslist.org/pol/581103415.html [craigslist.org]

Sorry about that... not back to normally scheduled reading.. or not

Re:Montana Governor

[superid]

The interview can be found here [npr.org] I heard it too but have not re-listened to it. I suppose he could have been a little more polished and less cranky but I think the gist of his argument was that it was a nebulous federal requirement that would cost Montana money and there would be no benefit.

I hope he doesn't back down.

And we all know how secure REALID is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if teenagers have already figured out how to forge them [kmsstv.com], then real terrorists will have no problem with it either.

So I ask, exactly how secure does this REALID card make us again?

Re:But... didn't the states vote for REAL ID?

[raymansean]

Real ID was tacked onto a must pass military spending bill. It was a sleezy thing to do and there lays the problem with a lot of things that are tacked onto bills. I bill should cover one topic and set forth only one act. IE a spending bill has nothing to do with national ID's.

Re:Who is being protected?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you are not aware of this, but federal buildings constructed after the Oklahoma City bombing have been designed so that attacks from automobiles are not possible. The face of the building is further away from vehicle access and there is a physical incline and/or barriers that make it impossible to ram or bomb the building using an automobile. Older buildings have typically been retrofitted with barriers.

These are the sort of facts you need to know before you try to make an argument.

Re:Damn that commy cut and paste buffer

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am from India. The accident rates in India are horrendously high. India has one third the area of USA and 3.5 times the population. So if count accident rate per thousand and such statistical measures you can make it appear as though accident rates are same in India and USA.

But in reality, roads are so horrible, the average speed is 40 Kmph within cities and much much lower during rush hours. Between the cities, the speeds are between 60Kmph and 80Kmph. And the accidents are horrible. Ambulance service is bad. Measured in passenger kilometer terms, India's rate is about 100 times worse than USA. See the stats below.

90000 Indians die in road accidents, despite having less than 1% of the number of vehicles in the world [ertico.com]. Assuming USA 150 million vehicles, traveling 15,000 miles per vehicle, 25000 traffic fatalities per year, India with 15 million vehicles, traveling 6000 miles per year, the accident rate in India is 90 times worse than USA.

Re:Damn You 17th Amendment...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn you...

Why?

The 17th Amendment simply restates the original wording of Art I sec 3 but replaces "chosen by the Legislature thereof" with "elected by the people thereof". It also requires that a Senator meets the qualifications for the largest legislative assembly in the State. Finally, it allows each state to legislate the rules for filling a vacancy, provided that there is ultimately an election.

It's not really much of an amendment.

In practice, the Legislatures -- with the sole exceptions of Utah (which rejected the amendment) and Florida (which never completed an action to ratify or reject the amendment) -- voluntarily devolved their power of Senatorial election to the People of their respective States.

Let me stress this: they relinquished their power willingly to the citizens of their respective states.

Why? Because that's what their citizens wanted, it was already being done in several states, and the states that were not going down the path already usually had weak or literally non-existant representation in the Senate.

Is the 17th a bad thing? It exposes every individual Senator to the electors in his or her State every six years, rather than to the State Legislature every year or two, or every few years, or only once (depending on the rules in the State in question). It also gives Senators a clear personal, democratic mandate in Washington D.C. -- rather than some Senators having a clear mandate from the current majority in the Legislature, a murky mandate from a previous majority, or an unchallengeable appointment for life, depending on the rules in each State. Many Senators were not public figures at all, and were often party officials or donors.

Moreover, prior to the 17th amendment, vacancies were often left unfilled for years at a time, simply because rules in State legislative assemblies allowed blocking actions (filibuster, for example, or supermajorities).

Finally, Several states had already been devolving the election of Senators to the citizens by plebiscite, with the Legislatures simply formally reiterating the results of the extra-constitutional election.

In some alternate reality in which the 17th amendment was not ratified, most states would have come under direct internal pressure to devolve the election of Senators to the citizens of the state by direct election anyway.

Although the personal, democratic mandate enjoyed by Senators since the 17th seems like it would shift power away from state legislatures, the reality is that few state legislatures tried to hold their Senators on a tight leash, and those that did tended to fail spectacularly anyway.