An American.
Hi Scott's thowing back on seven hundred WWT starting next week. You're gonna need real ID to get through federal security checkpoints to fly at like TSA lines obviously in the airports, federal buildings and the like and all that is an enhanced background check on you. When you go renew your license, you bring some extra materials IDs with you. We'll get to that in a second, so the federal government then can rubber stamp you go through the line. Problem is compliance.
Indiana eighty one percent compliance, so eight out of every ten Indianas are good. Ohio is about sixty right now. Kentucky is hovering around forty percent, less than forty percent, and that's a big problem right now, to the point where the lawmakers in Kentucky are asking the government for an extension of the federal government for an extension. He is a state representative. Steve don out of Kentucky's penning some legislation to maybe ease this somewhat.
Steve, welcome back to the show. How are you.
I'm doing well, sir, Thank you so much for having me.
Appreciate you having you on the show. You know, I look at this and go, come on, man, you don't want to be by the way, New Jersey. Only seventeen percent of people in Jersey are real ID compliant, largely because they can't fly anywhere because the ankle monitors. But what the hell is going on in Kentucky? Why why are you guys lagging behind? That's a good look for you.
Yeah, so you know, there's some historical context here to this issue. We used to have the way that that driver's licensing work in Kentucky is you had one hundred and twenty counties and every county clerk was responsible for partnering up with the Department of Transportations to make sure
that those things, those licenses were issued that way. One of the things that happened in twenty twenty one is that a lot of our or maybe about twenty twenty, but a lot of our county clerk started to say, hey, we don't really have the capacity to issue these real ideas. We don't have the funding, we don't have the resources
available to it. And so some legislation was passed that year to revance these this whole process and to go to a regionalized system them of licensing as opposed to that that county clerk issue.
So this has to do more with bureaucracy than anything.
Absolutely, you know, what happens is you have and it really impacts rural Kentucky specifically. You know, in the more urban areas, it's a little bit easier, right, you can get in, you can get out, but when you have about three or four counties that you might be servicing regionally, it's very difficult for all the folks to funnel into one spot. So there's definitely a lot of bureaucratic red
tape involved in it. Just logistically it's difficult. And you hear this a lot with guys that have CDL, you know, just getting in to get a renewal and its something like that. It's been an absolute nightmare here in Kentucky for question time.
Okay, but but here's the rub.
It's almost like telling my kids that you know, when they're where they're complining to us. It's like, wait a minute, You've had the better part of twenty years, Like, hey, last year Congress said do this. No, this has been going on since the Bush administration. We've known this state was coming.
Yeah, you know, we've been a state that's been resistance to it since the beginning. I think, uh, Governor Matt Bevin when he was in he ended up detoing some legislation that would have started the implementation of real IBE. He ultimately, i think, later enacted that into law. There's some some additional legislation maybe a year later. But yeah, Kentucky, you know, kind of resistant to you know, big government telling them to do anything. So I kind of can't blame the folks here for not.
On Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, you know, too much. Less government is better government in my opinion. But the ask here really is not that big, and considering it also came from a Republican administration. Although they are ready to have all the information, they're just asking you basically bring your Social Security card and a phone bill. I mean, that's the the ask really isn't that big. You all the information that they have, uh
is already on by you. Just bringing it in to verify who you are is not really that big a hurdle to jump when it comes to civil liberties, is it.
Well, you know, we did another licensing thing here in the state where you had to get I think we're the only state that does is she has to go get an annual certification for your vision to make sure that you're able to drive right. And that's been an abolute nightmare in and of itself for folks being able to get those things done. So, you know, it's just increased hurdles that folks aren't used to. You don't exactly for you know, what, do you renew your license every.
Four years or whatever?
Ye?
Yeah, yeah, And so it's just something that I think folks, if they have the option to opt out of it, they're going to opt out of that additional.
Hurdle whatever, or you show off, you show up what they usually having. Good are the because is it cost a little extra for the real idea?
I forget.
I think it's like forty dollars for the real.
Idea versus whatever it is for a regular driver's license. And maybe people look at it and go, yeah, I'm not paying that extra money. But now those people are going, well, wait a minute, what do you mean I can't fly or get into a building or it might be the night access and now people are losing their minds over that. That's more on them for not understanding, you know, what's required.
I mean in Georgia, it's nearly one hundred percent compliance, I believe, simply because that's just how they do their licensing there. It's like, yeah, bring all that stuff with you when you give your driver's license. Not a big deal. And so everyone's already compliant. You know, if you just would have changed maybe just changed the rules to that, that seemed to work.
Yeah, I and I, you know, I kept playing folks for here one of the things that I did. And it's a way around if you don't have a real idea or you don't want to get one each go out and you can get a passport. I d so I've got one of these that carry in my wallet.
It's it's a passport. It doesn't allow you to you know, travel international, but it does allow you to travel, you know, within the United States, and it does comply with those real ID requirements so that you can get on a flight here come the next couple of days if you don't have your real ID.
Right, So let's go out through this right now, there's a huge backup at the driver's licensing offices with real ID, you can't get an appointment. So June, I believe right as to the point where lawmakers are begging the federal government for an extension.
Do you think that's going to happen?
I mean, we need one, We almost have to have one here in Kentucky. I'm not sure what it looks like for us to get an extension. I know that Congressman Matthews has been fighting pretty hard with Christy Gnome over there. Who has the ability and the authority to make those decisions. You know, Representative Savannah Mattock who authored House Bill five eighteen, which is the move to a county base instead of a regional base. He did a post yesterday on Facebook and went through some of the
wait times for folks in Bellevue, Kentucky. No appointments available, Bardstown forty five days. Oh it's for a thirty eight Louisville sixty days. A couple of them have sixty days. But there's just significant wait times out there. Even And another thing that happened that maybe is kind of dovetailing into this in the short term, we changed with House Bill fifteen slash Legislative session, the licensing requirements for kids.
So now if you're a fifteen year old and you can get a driver's license, and so I think there's even that additional rush on top of folks just trying to comply with the real ID.
He is a state representative, Steve down, Kentucky Representative on the real ID crisis. Only about forty percent of Kentuckians elvis before driver's license have real ID. The problem there is you would need that to fly, to go into a federal building, anything that has to do with the federal government, you would need a real ID. And that's just an enhanced background check basically to make sure you
are hear you say you are. And you know, I don't know if that's big government as much as it is just making sure you are who we say you are. And it seems to me Kentuckians who overwhelming supported President Trump and the only i think category cord of the pollsters anyway that the President isn't underwater on is immigration and cracking down the flow of illegals.
If you support that, as I do.
Then it seems like could make sense that you, if you're getting a real idea anyway, that you present more information to show who you support, who you say you are.
I mean, those two things go in and end.
Are they Yeah, you know, to an extent, when this thing was passed in twenty twenty, two thousand and five, it wasn't necessarily the illegal immigrations they were looking at, right, They was used more as a way to crack down on terrorists who may have been here, you know, legally at the time. And so I think that's one way that the administration has kind of pivoted into, Hey, let's
get this federal system rolling. Let's use that as a popular issue to you know, push folks into it and kind of you know, quell any any descent.
Yeah, I mean, we support anti terrorism measures and anti legal immigration measures until you asked me to do something. And maybe it's not in my backyard system that Kentuckians are are are afraid of her, And.
I don't think it's just Kentucky that if you look at Senator Mike Lee, I mean he's filed legislations for batsa outright. And so I think that people have kind of over the last twenty years, twenty five years or twenty years kind of seen this, no this twenty five years since eleven, kind of seen this expansion of you know, government control and government spy state essentially, and I think they're kind of sick of it and wanting to see a little bit less government and move those things back
to the state level. Yeah.
Possibly, but you know, if you're gonna interact federally, you kind of need a standard there. I understand that, and the documents you need. By the way, I know Jesse Brewer, our mutual friend, has a great setups called Commissioner Corner Commissioner not Commissioner's Commissioner Corner dot com. All the information is there you need, what you will need to bring
if you get your real ID. I will say this though, that some people, particularly women have changed their names because they got married, have to provide legal paperwork they may not have on hand in order to get that reyal id. That that's a problem for married folks.
It may be. You know, it's not too difficult. I'll be quite honest. I've never had to change my name. It was my my wife that did it. And I love that through the Social Security Office as well. And so you know that marriage license you can usually get those online at your county clerk's website and I do. And Jesse has a great you mentioned you know, the Commissioner's Corner website. It's a great website where you can get on there and he's he's got links to all
that kind of stuff. If you're looking for something like that and move county.
I know you're sponsoring House Bill five eighteen that expand driver's licensing service in the counties between the Cabinet, Transporission Cabinet and the circuit clerks.
Is that what you're talking about, trying to streamline things.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You know how still five eighteen is a way to address that backlog, that consolidation. What it's done is it's just made less places available for folks to go. And so by doing this, you're able to create more opportunities for folks to get in.
There are issues that need to be addressed regarding security and those kinds of things, but I think this Department of Transportation in Kentucky has worked that out and we can easily implement those systems on a cammy wide basis.
Well, you know, I've said look at this, and I think we all look at and go, well, why why did this take to you know, a couple of weeks before before the real I standard went no effect on May seventh, So coming up next week and now Okay, I.
Think we got to get I think we're gonna.
Have to streamline some stuff. And that's not entirely on you just you're part of the legislature. I just sit back in Ohio with popcorn to watch this go. What are you guys doing? And I really can't speak because Ohio, we're only forty percent compliance. So it's not like, you know, we've got this in conquered either.
It's not a new thing. It was a big, big fight. I wasn't around in the legislature when they moved to the regional offices, but from my understanding, it was a huge fight. You know, the county clerks were really upset about it, and you've got they've got a powerful lobbying group, and you know they're able to influence their legislators quite well.
And so even they continue to push back against this bill, they don't want it to come back to them because it's just an additional expense and that coll center really in their office that they're not really compensated for by tax dollars, and so that's part of it. They would much rather see it over there at the Department's Transportation.
I think the Department of transportation probably like having a little bit more control and say over the whole thing, and so it's just government fighting government.
Yeah, it seems like if you just if you just make this the standard across the board like that in Georgia, that's easy way to solve it. Next time eveing for a license, here's what you got to bring with you. I mentioned, oh I was forty percent compliant. I messed that up. I'll have we're sixty percent compliant. But you guys are forty, Indiana eighty one. At least, we're all not New Jersey. That's only seventeen percent compliance there. They've
they got a long way to go. I don't know how you can have seventeen states that don't have half the population with real ID and not maybe give them a little bit more time, lay this thing a little bit. It kind of would make sense. Let everyone catch up at this point. But again, we'll have folks just waiting in the last minute, hoping for a bailout. Is this
it's what we do. We you know, we just we extend things we shouldn't extend and go No, you know, you're gonna have to get your bleep together and figure this stuff out. And the ask, as I said, it's really not that big. You got to bring documents with your full legal name, your data, birth you know, the obviously if you're US citizen, social security number, and at least in Ohio, no, it's two proofs of street address, so it could be a utility bill and something else
to show that's where you are. And then you get a little I don't know, a little star in the corner of your driver's license, and you can go to airports and go through lines and stuff like that. Just try to be try to be more secure. But if you don't plan on flying at all or maybe going to a federal building, should you even bother getting the real idea? I men know plenty of people just they I don't travel. If I go anywhere, I drive, but I'm not I'm never gonna fly. So would you need it?
You know, no, you could survive with just the regular life. But you know, one of the things that folks who really push back against this is there concern that there's going to be some type of a federal database where they're capturing everybody's information. One of the beauties of our system is that we have this decentralized government, the kind of each state does its own thing, and even each county kind of does its own thing, but we all
come together as part of this thing. And so as you see this, this large federal oversight come down to capture everybody's information to kind of monitor them. I even hear stories, and I don't know if they're true or not. I hear stories that these things seem when you go
by federal buildings or something like that. And I've seen pictures online of people, you know, show them maybe some kind of chip in there, and r if i'd be I've looked at some of these things, you know, through a pretty bright light here at least thinking tucky, and I've never seen anything like that at them.
Well, if you ever try to, if you ever look at it this way, it's it's like a credit card. You know, you walk into Kroger. Not every terminal is going to go off with your credit card is because it's reading it. You have to actually physic or touch it. So we don't have the technology. It's not it's not that way in that idea. Just think of a credit card. That's that's the extent of your technology. When it comes to a chip reader, you got to be fairly close to the reader for the thing to go off. It's
not just walking by the federal building. That's silly.
I agree with you completely on that point, you know. And it's and in terms of just capturing information, I mean, we it's one thing for a bank, or it's one thing for your grocery store to capture your information, but it's a totally different thing when the government does it. You know, we have those Fourth Amendments protections, we have, you know, a constitution that says that the government can't just grab our information and kind of a drag net fashion.
And so that's one of the reasons that some of these folks that Congress and Thomas Massey pushed back on so hard. It's a slippery slope once we give up just our general basic information to the government. I mean, how much more are they're going to take from where they're going to go from there?
Well, I'll push back and say I get I get to complaint there, Steve Oh, But if you're of that group, then you shouldn't have any ID, no driver's license, no state issued, caired, nothing, because the information that you're going to show them to prove to the in this case, the state through the federal government or the federal gum through the state is to just reinforce the information you already gave them. You're not giving them new information. You're
you're just breaking in and verifying who you are. They already have the information that this doesn't make sense.
It's different groups, right, I mean, that's the difference between you know, a state level versus a federal level of having all that information. If it's at a state level, it's harder for the FED the FED to get and vice versa. So it's keeping that decentralized, that broken up government that kind of restricts power from getting too big and letting anybody take over.
But you're presenting it not to the federal government. You're presenting it to the state. They're just verifying who you are. This isn't the federal government, this is this is the county clerks.
I don't think anybody's really objecting to the state, yeah knowing licensing or doing those kinds. I think that the objection is that there's a federal government that's captured all of this information.
But you're not going What I'm saying is you're not going to the FEDS. You're going to the state to get the real ID. They're just verifying who you say you are. This information is. It's not all going to the it's not all uploaded the FED or I guess they're already having the database anyway. I mean, if you know, if you do something to trigger you know, federal government, let's say the FBI involved, they're going to pull your state records.
I think go through process.
Okay, yeah, I gotta get going, and I appreciate the time as always A state Rep. Steve down in Kentucky again, only about forty percent of Kentucky ands eligible for a driver's license have real idea that standard goes into effect next week, and he's working on legislation to maybe streamline.
It's a little bit better and it's a long time coming.
We'll find out what happens with the ask of a temporary retreat for Kentucky and sixteen other states.
We'll see how they goes.
Steve all the best man. Thanks for checking out. I appreciate your time go to speak with you.
Hey, thank you so much for having me on take care.
I have no idea why this is such a big deal. To be honest with you as a as a small governments government kind of guy.
They already have the info.
I don't. I don't know what warrior for, I don't know what the battle is here. Somebody helped me slowly. Seven hundred other