ST. PAUL -- Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton on Thursday signed a new law lifting a seven-year-old ban on state planning for federal identification standards.
The measure, which would allow the Minnesota Department of Public Safety to study bringing federal Real ID rules to Minnesota driver’s licenses, received overwhelming approval in the Legislature. Similarly, the 2009 ban on the public safety agency working on anything related to the federal Real ID law won votes from all but one member of the Legislature.
A lot has changed since then.
“The federal government is requiring that we to do this, and we want to make sure our constituents can fly and get into federal buildings,” House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin, R-Rogers, said before the House voted 125-2 to remove the ban.
Earlier this year, the federal government told states that starting in 2018, residents of states that had not yet complied with the Real ID standards would have to bring a second form of identification, like a passport, to get through Transit Security Administration airport lines. The federal standards include extra security checks to confirm the person receiving state’s identification cards, like driver’s licenses.
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Now that the state has lifted the ban, the Department of Public Safety has to get to work figuring out how Minnesota can adopt the federal rules. The new law gives the agency until April 14 to report back to lawmakers on implementation.
Some work began immediately.
Within hours of Dayton signing the law, Public Safety Commissioner Ramona Dohman called the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to let the federal officials know she can now talk about Real ID and would be in touch on particulars in the future.
While state lawmakers say they would like Minnesotans to be able start receiving the federally approved identification cards before the end of the year since the state agency was unable to discuss the standards before, officials do not know how much it would cost or how long it would take to put the new standards in place.
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By Rachel E. Stassen-Berger
Forum News Service
