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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Martinez

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/29/07

3/13/07

HB HJM 13/aSRC

SHORT TITLE Oppose Creation of National ID Card

SB

ANALYST Baca

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of SRC Amendment

The Senate Rules Committee amendment deletes the following provision

"that the New Mexico legislature enact no legislation nor authorize an appropriation to

further the implementation of the REAL ID Act in New Mexico, unless such appropriation is

used to mount a constitutional

challenge to the act by the state attorney general."

Synopsis of Original Bill

House Joint Memorial 13, endorsed by the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee, opposes

the creation of a national Identification card and the implementation of the REAL ID Act of

2005. HJM 13 further resolves that a copy of the memorial be sent to President George W. bush,

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Pete Domenici,

Senator Jeff Bingaman, Representative Tom Udall, Representative Heather Wilson, and

Representative Steve Pearce.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

HJM 13 cites New Mexico’s diverse populations, the state’s tradition of protecting civil rights

and the expansive protections guaranteed by the United States constitution and denounce

terrorism in all its forms. Among the reasons for objecting the implementation of the REAL ID

Act OF 2005 are that the Act:

House Joint Memorial 13/aSRC – Page

2

•

places costly unfunded mandates on the state estimated at $37 million over five years

related to requirements that states are to place specified information on electronically

readable driver’s licenses or the licenses will not be honored by federally regulated

airlines and federal agencies (nationally the cost of implementation is estimated at more

than $11 billion over the next five years);

•

requires the creation of massive public sector databases containing information on every

American that is accessible to all motor vehicle agencies and law enforcement officers

that can be used to gather and manage information on citizens, a function not the business

or responsibility of the government;

•

enables the creation of additional transactional databases that can contain numerous

errors and false information thereby creating significant hardship for many Americans

attempting to verify their identities and perform many of the transactions needed to live

in the United states today; and

•

enable (facilitate) the crime of identity theft by making all this information available on

all Americans (the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 10 million citizens are

victims of identity theft annually).

Moreover, implementation of the REAL ID Act will place additional, undue burdens state staff

implementing the Act in areas relating to information verification, records retention, increased

documents requests, waiting periods and waiting lines for applicants and enormous costs on

businesses that will be affected. In addition, the Act will place state motor vehicle division staff

on the front lines of immigration enforcement by forcing state employees to determine federal

citizenship and immigration status, thereby excessively burdening both foreign-born applicants

and motor vehicle staff. State staff would also be required to issue two classes of driver’s

licenses, a practice that could promote discrimination among the citizens of the state.

The REAL ID Act, HJM 13 asserts, was passed without due deliberation among federal policy

makers and affected constituents, serves as unwarranted intrusion on the privacy of individuals,

widens access to those who would commit identify theft, would created enormous paperwork

requirements for all affected persons (citizens and non-citizens alike), and, basically, seems to

ignore many of the rights guaranteed to Americans by the United States constitution.

LRB/nt