Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Utah invokes the 10th; HB 234

BTC - GUESS WHAT? The 10th Amendment strategy works.... on Real ID... again.

Introduced in the Utah Legislature is House Bill 234 (HB234), which if passed, would prohibit the state from “participating in the implementation of the REAL ID Act of 2005.”

Real ID created national standards for driver’s license and identification cards and opponents have been resisting it for various reasons – it’s a privacy risk, forces states to bear the financial burden, and is not authorized by the constitution.

HB234 addresses much of this:

The Legislature finds that the United States Congress’ enactment of the REAL ID Act into law:

(a) is inimical to the security and well-being of the people of this state;
(b) will cause unneeded expense and inconvenience to the people of this state; and
(c) was adopted in violation of the principles of federalism contained in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Utah legislature passed House Resolution 4 (HR4) in 2009, which was a non-binding resolution making clear that the legislature opposed the law. Supporters of HB234 see it as a logical follow-up to the resolution passed last year.

States were originally given until May 2008 to comply with the law, but widespread resistance resulted in the Federal Government changing that deadline not once, not twice, but three times.

More than two dozen states have passed resolutions or binding laws opposition the act, rendering the Bush-era law nearly null and void in practice.

CLICK HERE – to view all current Real ID nullification legislation

Michael Boldin is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.




1 comment:

knownothing said...

I'm eagerly awaiting the result of this.
I was not aware of another resolution by Utah on this..
only had been aware of HR 2.. which was 2007.
Wow.. we (Utah) are just really going back and forth on this one. Just in January here we started with new regulations at our DMVs to COMPLY with REAL ID. That makes a lot of sense huh?

Thanks for the blog post!

D Kallus