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Camden: Lawmakers think bill real solution to REAL ID issue

By Jim Camden
Published: December 21, 2016, 6:01am

Lawmakers at the top of the transportation policy pyramid have what they think is a solution to Washington’s long, and likely losing, battle over its driver’s license system.

The feds say the state’s current standard licenses don’t meet the requirements of federal law, which means that eventually a Washington resident would need something else to get on a plane or into many U.S. government facilities where someone checks your ID.

A standard Washington license or identification card doesn’t say whether you are in the country legally, so it doesn’t pass muster with the REAL ID law. The state has an enhanced driver’s license that meets those requirements, but to get one, a person must show up at a state licensing office with proof of citizenship, identity and residence. And shell out more money. A standard driver’s license costs $54 for six years, but an enhanced license, which has certain technology that allows it to be scanned for extra security, is $108 for six years.

The plan by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Curtis King, R-Yakima, and House Transportation Committee Chairwoman Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island, is to change the standard license so it says it’s not valid ID for federal purposes, and to lower the fee slightly for the enhanced license so it would be $90 for six years.

The former would likely make the feds happy. The latter might not satisfy some of the critics who have been fighting a change under the theory that people who want something to satisfy the feds or the airlines can buy a passport. At $110, a passport is only a few bucks more than the current enhanced license. It’s good for 10 years, which makes it cheaper on a per-year basis than the proposed new one. The rest of the state shouldn’t have to revise its system to satisfy them, critics say.

The Legislature has been trying without much luck to resolve this problem for years. It’s becoming less of an academic exercise, though, because in early 2018, regular Washington driver’s licenses aren’t going to be accepted for folks getting on a plane, meaning someone’s going to be steamed when they show up at the airport.

Matching bills by King and Clibborn were “pre-filed” for the 2017 legislative session, which is basically the state’s last chance to head off that problem.

Targeting protesters

Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, pre-filed a proposal last week that may delight some manufacturers and other businesses, but seems tailor-made to set civil libertarians on edge.

His proposed Preventing Economic Disruption Act calls for extra jail time for any protest or demonstration that causes “economic harm by impeding economic activities.”

It would cover any demonstration designed to influence government policy that delays trains, planes, automobiles — and just about anything else that carries cargo — or interferes with a pipeline, oil terminal or power plant.

So it would seem to apply to a protest like the one against the Dakota Access Pipeline, but not necessarily one like the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, since no commercial activity was blocked there.

Ericksen heads the Energy Committee, so the bill would get a hearing if it’s assigned there. Its long-term prospects are more uncertain.

Draining the swamp

While supporters and opponents of President-elect Donald Trump argue whether his cabinet picks show he’s making good on a promise to “drain the swamp,” state officials are actually draining a former swamp in Olympia.

The swamp, or estuary if we’re being hoity-toity, was below the Capitol campus until the river that ran through it was dammed to create Capitol Lake. But now the lake is beset by snails — foreign snails from New Zealand, no less — so state officials are drawing the lake down as low as possible in the cold weather to freeze out as many as possible of the pesky little mollusks.


Jim Camden is a columnist with the Spokesman-Review in Spokane. Email: jimc@spokesman.com.

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