Maine lawmakers balk at federal driver’s license-ID system

The Maine Legislature declared that it would refuse a congressional order to change its drivers’ licenses so they can serve as national identification cards.

Supporters of a recent nonbinding resolution say the federal program would invite identity theft and cost Maine taxpayers $185 million over the first five years.

The resolution says the Legislature “refuses to implement the Real ID Act of 2005” and asks Congress to repeal it.

Copies were to be sent to President Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other officials.

The Real ID Act passed after it was found that Sept. 11 terrorists had obtained legitimate driver’s licenses. The law seeks to link state records to a central database and unify state licensing rules, making it harder to obtain a card fraudulently. Now, Chertoff says, people cross borders with hundreds of kinds of IDs.

State licenses that fail to meet Real ID’s standards will not be able to be used to board an airplane or enter a federal building.

Shenna Bellows of the Maine Civil Liberties Union derided Real IDs as “a one-stop shop for identity thieves” because they would include coded addresses that could be read by someone with a scanner. Bellows said Maine was the first state to oppose the law and other states are catching on.

Last March, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to reject a $3 million grant for a Real ID pilot but the Senate killed the bill.

In August, the National Conference of State Legislatures demanded that Congress either find a way to pay for the Real ID Act or repeal it. Several states have complained that it will cost them tens of millions of dollars to implement. At the time, Chertoff sought to ease worries about the law, saying there was no intent to create a “big brother” approach.

In Maine, House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat, acknowledged that the resolution is not binding. She said the language saying the state “refuses” to comply with the law “is more expressing our feeling and intent that we’re not interested in following through.”

But Pingree added that companion legislation yet to be voted on directs the secretary of state not to comply.

Senate Majority Leader Elizabeth Libby Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, sponsor of the resolution, said Real ID “will do nothing to make us safer, but it is our job as state legislators to protect the people of Maine from just this sort of dangerous federal mandate.”

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