What are the downsides of not cooperating? What is his motivation or benefits for capitulating?
Edit: Oh, ahhh I see: "Governor Gavin Newsom agreed to upload driver's license data to a national database primarily to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005 and avoid federal threats that would prevent California IDs from being accepted at airports and other federal facilities. This decision was finalized through a budget compromise with the state legislature following intense pressure from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security"
(There is only one team in US politics.)
Since the federal law requiring this was passed in 2005, it's another historically and unpopular president and fedgov.
(I am of course referring to Abraham Lincoln and the 1861 federal government)
From a state perspective, there’s a lot of benefit to exchanging this type of information across state lines through AAMVA. It reduces a lot of fraud, avoids a lot of insurance issues that cost the state taxpayers a lot of money. It has a lot of benefits to things like commercial motor carrier safety that have a direct benefit to the public.
For example, New York does direct entity to entity sharing of many driving records with Ontario and Quebec. The Canadians benefited because I don’t allow people with DWIs to enter Canada, New York benefited by keeping unsafe truckers off state highways, who were exploiting certain pools in Canadian regulations.
It’ll take a bit of time, But the long game here is that the United States will have a national ID system.
The big conflict is that states issue licenses (AB 60 in California, “green light” in other places) without regard to the ability to provide legal documentation of legal residency. Advocates fear that the sharing will be used by the hypervigilant immigration bureaucracy. States don’t enforce immigration law, but every resident of a state is at risk if people are driving around without insurance or without being subject to driving licensing laws. This also allows populations like the homeless to get IDs, But it’s being used as a punching bag by right wing commentators, rallying against illegal alien truckers and other nonsense.
>>We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans,
This particular word, with no other identities after that, takes the air out of this massive effort and gives the impression it is a localized effort.
It sounds like this database is the one that feeds license data to NCIC. The bigger question here is if we should be compiling and using data in the NCIC suchbas driver licenses and carry permits.
"about all driver’s licenses and ID cards"
This isnt just about drivers. That matters. Driving a car is not a fundamental right. But access to a state ID card, something you will need to access many services, probably is.
It's complicated within each party, but not overall. Idealogues prefer debating other idealogues because they use the same vocabularies and that preference is why they are always fighting, they like it. But the fat part of the curve in the middle is mostly made up of non idealogues who are quietly saying "can't you just shut up and compromise, let's be practical".
Sjeiti•1h ago