Throughout the last decade, we have experienced countless attempts by the federal government to assert unauthorized power over the State of Missouri and infringe upon the liberty of Missouri residents. The most recent example is the federal government’s attempt to force Missouri into compliance with the federal Real ID program.
In order to protect the liberty of Missourians and the sovereignty of our state government, Senate leadership, through President Pro Tem Ron Richard, sent Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster the following letter requesting him to defend a Missouri law that passed in 2009, which prohibited our state from complying with the REAL ID program:
January 4, 2016
Attorney General Chris Koster
Supreme Court Building
207 W. High St.
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Dear Attorney General Koster:
Thank you for your recent call regarding the threatened implementation of the Real ID program by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As you are aware, concerns have been raised that in the near future the federal government will stop allowing Missouri driver’s licenses to be used as identification when boarding commercial aircraft. These concerns have been heightened in the wake of last week’s announcement that Missouri licenses will not be valid to access federal facilities such as military bases after January 10, 2016.
By way of background, you will recall that due to serious concerns over the personal privacy of their citizens many States refused to comply with a federal law passed in 2005 known as the Real ID Act. This act effectively commandeered State licenses as a way to institute a national identification card and gave the federal government control over who would hold a valid license.
Missouri was one such State and with the passage of HB 361 in 2009, banned compliance with Real ID in statute. Then, in 2013 legislators became aware that the Missouri Department of Revenue was moving towards compliance with Real ID, despite the statutory ban, prompting additional legislation to prohibit such action.
As we read the headlines from the past couple of weeks, we see that efforts to implement Real ID are alive and well. The current efforts by DHS to coerce States to implement Real ID under the threat of the loss of reasonably accessible travel privileges for their citizens speaks volumes about the general mindset of bureaucrats in Washington. Rather than seek a workable partnership with States such as Missouri to further our common goal of increasing safety and security for the American public, they proceed with threats and scare tactics designed to cause alarm and to force compliance with their directives.
As State leaders we respect the role that the federal authorities play in the international arena and for making our borders secure. However, we have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that the reasonable expectation of privacy and the freedom of interstate travel guaranteed by the United States Constitution to citizens of the Show Me State is not sacrificed in the name of bureaucratic efficiency.
There is a further principle at stake here. Though federal courts have done all they can to ignore the plain reading of the Constitution, the founders of our Republic were explicit that all powers not specifically given to the federal government are reserved to the States and to the people themselves. To make sure there was no confusion on this point, they memorialized it as the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment.
The issuance of driver’s licenses has, since the invention of the automobile, been under the authority of the individual States. Real ID undermines not only control of driver’s licenses but of the authority of the fifty States of our Union.
In 1994, in the case of Lopez v. the United States, Chief Justice Rehnquist, realizing that the federal government left unchecked would eventually absorb all of the powers reserved to the States, wrote the following:
To uphold the Government’s contentions here [that the federal government could interfere in a matter traditionally under the control of the States], we would have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. . . but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that . . . there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.
We agree with Justice Rehnquist’s assessment. There are important freedoms and principles at stake here.
A free people will always be required to balance and maintain both liberty and security. We in the legislature are strongly committed to doing just that. To this end, we respectfully request that you join us in this effort and use all means at your disposal to defend Missouri’s law preventing implementation of the Real ID Act.
Sincerely,
Sen. Ron Richard
President Pro Tempore