DRIVER’S LICENSE FIX

Maine may have lost some footing in its resistance to initiatives such as the federal Real ID plan with the recent embarrassing news that revealed the ease with which one can secure a state-issued driver’s license.

Last week’s disclosure, which came through the sentencing of an Irish national in federal court for the armed robbery of a Bangor bank, was that a Maine state official encouraged the man to come to the Pine Tree State to get a driver’s license because no residency proof was required. The conversation between state official and bank robber occurred in a Boston bar on St. Patrick’s Day, which only made the revelation more damaging to the state’s credibility when it comes to homeland security vigilance.

If that weren’t enough to spur a legislative fix, on Wednesday, a U.S. customs agent apprehended two women in the parking lot of the Augusta Bureau of Motor Vehicles who, the agent believes, were attempting to secure Maine driver’s licenses. The women were in the U.S. illegally, and living in New Jersey. According to a legal resident who knew them, the women “selected Maine because it is well-known in the Brazilian community in New Jersey that an illegal alien can come to Maine and obtain a license because Maine does not require any proof of citizenship,” the agent reported.

LR 3488, “An Act to Require That a Person be a Maine Resident in Order to be Issued a Maine Driver’s License,” was introduced to the Legislature’s Transportation Committee on Feb. 14. The committee has scheduled a work session on the bill Thursday. If not for the recent court disclosure and the arrests in Augusta, and concerns on the national stage about illegal immigrants getting driver’s licenses, the bill’s title would seem like an exercise in stating the obvious.

But this is Maine, a state where, until recently, residents rarely locked their doors at night and often left the key in their car’s ignition in the grocery store parking lot. A more skeptical approach to issuing driver’s licenses seemed unnecessary, if not downright rude. But times have changed. Just as the Sept. 11 hijackings might have been prevented if U.S. airlines had a policy of never opening cockpit doors, a simple residency requirement could prevent criminal fraud or worse.

The burden of showing residency, it would seem, will not be more difficult than passing the road and written tests. And after all, securing a library card in most Maine towns requires providing at least a bill with one’s street address.

A driver’s license is more than a way to prove one is old enough to buy beer; it can be a gateway to opening bank accounts, getting credit cards and buying airline tickets, and in some cases to receiving social service benefits.

A next step, which would mean more paperwork and perhaps more state staff to review it, would be to require license applicants to prove they are legal residents of the U.S. But proving Maine residency is a good start.