It doesn’t happen on the same cycle as our annual holiday traditions, but the arrival of another REAL ID compliance deadline means that it’s time for some comfortable and time-worn rituals.
Federal bureaucrats caroling? Security hawks lighting the menorah? Alas, nothing so charming.
The January 15 “deadline” for state compliance with our national ID law, the REAL ID Act, will bring out state and local officials worrying about whether people will be able to board planes in late January. You see, REAL ID says that federal officials like the TSA can’t accept IDs from non-compliant states. Greg Roberts from the Lafayette (LA) Regional Airport thinks the TSA might turn away travelers bearing IDs from his state next month.
Federal officials will then send worried missives to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “What will become of us if you don’t extend the deadline?” they’ll plead, hoping for their constituents to hear. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D) and Tom Udall (D) of New Mexico did that this week.
Next comes the secretary of homeland security.
Sometimes, our top homeland security official is very, very scary toward the states, like Michael Chertoff was. “There comes a point in time where all the discussion and analysis has to stop,” he said in a press conference nearly five years ago. “The time has come to bite the bullet.”
Sometimes, the DHS secretary is very, very quiet, like Janet Napolitano. Having blocked REAL ID legislation as Arizona’s governor, she’s been all over the map since becoming a federal official. She knows REAL ID is going nowhere, but she doesn’t want to attract the slings of Republican security hawks who would try to blame her and President Obama for it.
And that’s the most amusing part of this tradition. REAL ID is going nowhere fast. But people in the press don’t know that. And state and local officials don’t follow the issue carefully, so they think they have to fall in line with the national ID program. Yet they never have, and they never will.