The article is titled to kind of make it sound like its a bad thing, when its not. The discrepancy in different IDs and how different states issue them and whats accepted is ridiculous.
I wouldn't say that either side is particularly wrong in its actions.
People say that about a lot of things, but so much of the time the reasoning isn't clear to me.
Why does Montana need a different style of ID than Washington?
A separate system, that I could understand. Not necessarily agree with, but understand.
So a state like New York that has lots of immigrants, whose status may or may not be legal has a compelling public need to license drivers, as licensure is required for things like liability insurance coverage.
A place like Montana may find that some of the consequences of higher levels of identity proofing are difficult or onerous because it's a huge state with few people and many Indian Reservations with other complications.
So why would you ask why a state needs to exercise the 10th Amendment?
If my state chose not to require an address on a driver's license, other states would not be able to enforce their laws on me while I am in their state, for example. If they don't require birthdates, other states can't enforce their drinking laws. If they don't require height and weight, other states would have a hard time verifying it's me. The list goes on and on. For interstate commerce, it makes sense that the federal government can mandate that states have to have at least some amount of minimal information on their licenses, otherwise the feds should issue a card with that information printed on it.
This logic gives the Federal Government almost unlimited power, since almost everything affects commerce. Are you proposing that commandeering of state governments by the federal government be permitted? What limits would you place on this 'right to encourage commerce'?
Side note, do you also think that passing one state's bar exam should allow you to practice law in every state? Or that there should be one national bar exam? Or a uniform set of laws in every state?
I don't know about anyone else, but I was raised to believe that requiring internal passports for travel is a hallmark of repressive authoritarian regimes.
I think you'll find that many of the activities they want us to use a federally-acceptable ID for are not, themselves, covered in Article I Section 8.
Unless they pass a new federal identification law what they are doing is unlawful.
This is what people often seem to miss, and it also is going on in the EU sadly too much.
The Federal government was granted certain powers by law, it can't just decide that it would grab more power or interfere in things it was intentionally prohibited from interfering.
This isn't because everything the fed's do are malicious but because the separation of power between the state and local governments is a key element of how the US government and political system is structured.
The federal government can't crouch over state rights any more than a state can decide to reinstitute slavery or ban women from attending school, once you start messing with that things can get murky really fast.
How so? The Federal government can set ID standards in areas that it has jurisdiction over, and reject IDs that don't meet these standards in its jurisdiction, which is all that's happening here.
Like other federal levers over state behavior (No highway funding if your drinking age is under 21!), this is grating, but it's not illegal. This has been going on in one form or another for decades and has been consistently ruled legal, as long as its not an unfunded mandate on the states.
If you look the NIST standards for identity proofing, very few things actually require higher levels of identity assurance, and those that do generally aren't met by driver's licenses anyway, REAL-ID or not.
And the problem with this internal passport losing it in a different state. If you lose your US passport in the UK, you have a chance to get it replaced by going to the US Embassy or consulate. But New York doesn't have any embassies or consulates in California, so good luck getting home from California if your license is stolen.
If you're stopped by the police, you'll get arrested in flyover country.
If you need to conduct business in a federal facility, you won't get in.