Real ID: Western Wedge

McCain supports Real ID

The 9/11 Commission recommended that the federal government set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as driver's licenses. Consistent with these recommendations, the Real ID act established federal guidelines to prevent fraud in the issuance and acquisition of identity documents. I support full implementation of Real ID but understand that states need to be given enough time and funding to implement the requirements.

Obama Opposes

Obama appears more liberal than Clinton, flatly opposing the Real ID Act while she's less forceful, saying it needs to be reviewed. Both engage in a careful lapse in memory: unlike Paul, Clinton and Obama voted for Real ID as part of a broader "Global War on Terror" spending bill three years ago before turning around and criticizing it.

The vote on the broader bill that contained HR 418, the Real ID bill, was for a GWOT omnibus that was a must pass 100-0.

This is a wedge issue in the west. The AZ legislature just passed a bill refusing compliance, joining the libertarian mountain west and the cranky yankee New Englanders expressing plans to not comply. It's win-win for us. If the governor signs it, then we've split her from McCain. If she vetoes it, we've got clear Republican support for it. Not something ol' AU-H2O would have liked.

This is also a very expensive unfunded mandate, requiring major retooling of systems for many states. And it's a shuck, a way to get a national ID card while pretending not to.

Bad issue for McCain. Tell your friends.


Updated to remove dumb mistake. Thanks to
GWPDA, yclept Irate Historian and the myriad others after him/her in the comments thread that I haven't read yet. Janet Napolitano is the governor, and she's a Democrat, and I knew that yesterday.