Speaker 1: An American.
Speaker 2: Hi Scott's thowing back on seven hundred WWT starting next week.
Speaker 2: You're gonna need real ID to get through federal security
Speaker 2: checkpoints to fly at like TSA lines obviously in the airports,
Speaker 2: federal buildings and the like and all that is an
Speaker 2: enhanced background check on you. When you go renew your license,
Speaker 2: you bring some extra materials IDs with you. We'll get
Speaker 2: to that in a second, so the federal government then
Speaker 2: can rubber stamp you go through the line. Problem is compliance.
Speaker 2: Indiana eighty one percent compliance, so eight out of every
Speaker 2: ten Indianas are good. Ohio is about sixty right now.
Speaker 2: Kentucky is hovering around forty percent, less than forty percent,
Speaker 2: and that's a big problem right now, to the point
Speaker 2: where the lawmakers in Kentucky are asking the government for
Speaker 2: an extension of the federal government for an extension. He
Speaker 2: is a state representative. Steve don out of Kentucky's penning
Speaker 2: some legislation to maybe ease this somewhat.
Speaker 3: Steve, welcome back to the show. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, sir, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you having you on the show. You know, I
Speaker 2: look at this and go, come on, man, you don't
Speaker 2: want to be by the way, New Jersey. Only seventeen
Speaker 2: percent of people in Jersey are real ID compliant, largely
Speaker 2: because they can't fly anywhere because the ankle monitors. But
Speaker 2: what the hell is going on in Kentucky? Why why
Speaker 2: are you guys lagging behind? That's a good look for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, there's some historical context here to
Speaker 1: this issue. We used to have the way that that
Speaker 1: driver's licensing work in Kentucky is you had one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty counties and every county clerk was responsible for
Speaker 1: partnering up with the Department of Transportations to make sure
Speaker 1: that those things, those licenses were issued that way. One
Speaker 1: of the things that happened in twenty twenty one is
Speaker 1: that a lot of our or maybe about twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but a lot of our county clerk started to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't really have the capacity to issue these real ideas.
Speaker 1: We don't have the funding, we don't have the resources
Speaker 1: available to it. And so some legislation was passed that
Speaker 1: year to revance these this whole process and to go
Speaker 1: to a regionalized system them of licensing as opposed to
Speaker 1: that that county clerk issue.
Speaker 3: So this has to do more with bureaucracy than anything.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, what happens is you have and it
Speaker 1: really impacts rural Kentucky specifically. You know, in the more
Speaker 1: urban areas, it's a little bit easier, right, you can
Speaker 1: get in, you can get out, but when you have
Speaker 1: about three or four counties that you might be servicing regionally,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult for all the folks to funnel into
Speaker 1: one spot. So there's definitely a lot of bureaucratic red
Speaker 1: tape involved in it. Just logistically it's difficult. And you
Speaker 1: hear this a lot with guys that have CDL, you know,
Speaker 1: just getting in to get a renewal and its something
Speaker 1: like that. It's been an absolute nightmare here in Kentucky
Speaker 1: for question time.
Speaker 3: Okay, but but here's the rub.
Speaker 2: It's almost like telling my kids that you know, when
Speaker 2: they're where they're complining to us. It's like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: You've had the better part of twenty years, Like, hey,
Speaker 2: last year Congress said do this. No, this has been
Speaker 2: going on since the Bush administration. We've known this state
Speaker 2: was coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we've been a state that's been resistance
Speaker 1: to it since the beginning. I think, uh, Governor Matt
Speaker 1: Bevin when he was in he ended up detoing some
Speaker 1: legislation that would have started the implementation of real IBE.
Speaker 1: He ultimately, i think, later enacted that into law. There's
Speaker 1: some some additional legislation maybe a year later. But yeah, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of resistant to you know, big government
Speaker 1: telling them to do anything. So I kind of can't
Speaker 1: blame the folks here for not.
Speaker 2: On Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, too much. Less government is better government in
Speaker 2: my opinion. But the ask here really is not that big,
Speaker 2: and considering it also came from a Republican administration. Although
Speaker 2: they are ready to have all the information, they're just
Speaker 2: asking you basically bring your Social Security card and a
Speaker 2: phone bill. I mean, that's the the ask really isn't
Speaker 2: that big. You all the information that they have, uh
Speaker 2: is already on by you. Just bringing it in to
Speaker 2: verify who you are is not really that big a
Speaker 2: hurdle to jump when it comes to civil liberties, is it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we did another licensing thing here in
Speaker 1: the state where you had to get I think we're
Speaker 1: the only state that does is she has to go
Speaker 1: get an annual certification for your vision to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're able to drive right. And that's been an
Speaker 1: abolute nightmare in and of itself for folks being able
Speaker 1: to get those things done. So, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: increased hurdles that folks aren't used to. You don't exactly
Speaker 1: for you know, what, do you renew your license every.
Speaker 3: Four years or whatever?
Speaker 2: Ye?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And so it's just something that I think folks,
Speaker 1: if they have the option to opt out of it,
Speaker 1: they're going to opt out of that additional.
Speaker 2: Hurdle whatever, or you show off, you show up what
Speaker 2: they usually having. Good are the because is it cost
Speaker 2: a little extra for the real idea?
Speaker 3: I forget.
Speaker 1: I think it's like forty dollars for the real.
Speaker 2: Idea versus whatever it is for a regular driver's license.
Speaker 2: And maybe people look at it and go, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not paying that extra money. But now those people are going, well,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, what do you mean I can't fly
Speaker 2: or get into a building or it might be the
Speaker 2: night access and now people are losing their minds over that.
Speaker 2: That's more on them for not understanding, you know, what's required.
Speaker 2: I mean in Georgia, it's nearly one hundred percent compliance,
Speaker 2: I believe, simply because that's just how they do their
Speaker 2: licensing there. It's like, yeah, bring all that stuff with
Speaker 2: you when you give your driver's license. Not a big deal.
Speaker 2: And so everyone's already compliant. You know, if you just
Speaker 2: would have changed maybe just changed the rules to that,
Speaker 2: that seemed to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I and I, you know, I kept playing folks
Speaker 1: for here one of the things that I did. And
Speaker 1: it's a way around if you don't have a real
Speaker 1: idea or you don't want to get one each go
Speaker 1: out and you can get a passport. I d so
Speaker 1: I've got one of these that carry in my wallet.
Speaker 1: It's it's a passport. It doesn't allow you to you know,
Speaker 1: travel international, but it does allow you to travel, you know,
Speaker 1: within the United States, and it does comply with those
Speaker 1: real ID requirements so that you can get on a
Speaker 1: flight here come the next couple of days if you
Speaker 1: don't have your real ID.
Speaker 2: Right, So let's go out through this right now, there's
Speaker 2: a huge backup at the driver's licensing offices with real ID,
Speaker 2: you can't get an appointment. So June, I believe right
Speaker 2: as to the point where lawmakers are begging the federal
Speaker 2: government for an extension.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's going to happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, we need one, We almost have to have
Speaker 1: one here in Kentucky. I'm not sure what it looks
Speaker 1: like for us to get an extension. I know that
Speaker 1: Congressman Matthews has been fighting pretty hard with Christy Gnome
Speaker 1: over there. Who has the ability and the authority to
Speaker 1: make those decisions. You know, Representative Savannah Mattock who authored
Speaker 1: House Bill five eighteen, which is the move to a
Speaker 1: county base instead of a regional base. He did a
Speaker 1: post yesterday on Facebook and went through some of the
Speaker 1: wait times for folks in Bellevue, Kentucky. No appointments available,
Speaker 1: Bardstown forty five days. Oh it's for a thirty eight
Speaker 1: Louisville sixty days. A couple of them have sixty days.
Speaker 1: But there's just significant wait times out there. Even And
Speaker 1: another thing that happened that maybe is kind of dovetailing
Speaker 1: into this in the short term, we changed with House
Speaker 1: Bill fifteen slash Legislative session, the licensing requirements for kids.
Speaker 1: So now if you're a fifteen year old and you
Speaker 1: can get a driver's license, and so I think there's
Speaker 1: even that additional rush on top of folks just trying
Speaker 1: to comply with the real ID.
Speaker 2: He is a state representative, Steve down, Kentucky Representative on
Speaker 2: the real ID crisis. Only about forty percent of Kentuckians
Speaker 2: elvis before driver's license have real ID. The problem there
Speaker 2: is you would need that to fly, to go into
Speaker 2: a federal building, anything that has to do with the
Speaker 2: federal government, you would need a real ID. And that's
Speaker 2: just an enhanced background check basically to make sure you
Speaker 2: are hear you say you are. And you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's big government as much as it
Speaker 2: is just making sure you are who we say you are.
Speaker 2: And it seems to me Kentuckians who overwhelming supported President
Speaker 2: Trump and the only i think category cord of the
Speaker 2: pollsters anyway that the President isn't underwater on is immigration
Speaker 2: and cracking down the flow of illegals.
Speaker 3: If you support that, as I do.
Speaker 2: Then it seems like could make sense that you, if
Speaker 2: you're getting a real idea anyway, that you present more
Speaker 2: information to show who you support, who you say you are.
Speaker 3: I mean, those two things go in and end.
Speaker 1: Are they Yeah, you know, to an extent, when this
Speaker 1: thing was passed in twenty twenty, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily the illegal immigrations they were looking at, right,
Speaker 1: They was used more as a way to crack down
Speaker 1: on terrorists who may have been here, you know, legally
Speaker 1: at the time. And so I think that's one way
Speaker 1: that the administration has kind of pivoted into, Hey, let's
Speaker 1: get this federal system rolling. Let's use that as a
Speaker 1: popular issue to you know, push folks into it and
Speaker 1: kind of you know, quell any any descent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we support anti terrorism measures and anti
Speaker 2: legal immigration measures until you asked me to do something.
Speaker 2: And maybe it's not in my backyard system that Kentuckians
Speaker 2: are are are afraid of her, And.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just Kentucky that if you look
Speaker 1: at Senator Mike Lee, I mean he's filed legislations for
Speaker 1: batsa outright. And so I think that people have kind
Speaker 1: of over the last twenty years, twenty five years or
Speaker 1: twenty years kind of seen this, no this twenty five
Speaker 1: years since eleven, kind of seen this expansion of you know,
Speaker 1: government control and government spy state essentially, and I think
Speaker 1: they're kind of sick of it and wanting to see
Speaker 1: a little bit less government and move those things back
Speaker 1: to the state level. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Possibly, but you know, if you're gonna interact federally, you
Speaker 2: kind of need a standard there. I understand that, and
Speaker 2: the documents you need. By the way, I know Jesse Brewer,
Speaker 2: our mutual friend, has a great setups called Commissioner Corner
Speaker 2: Commissioner not Commissioner's Commissioner Corner dot com. All the information
Speaker 2: is there you need, what you will need to bring
Speaker 2: if you get your real ID. I will say this though,
Speaker 2: that some people, particularly women have changed their names because
Speaker 2: they got married, have to provide legal paperwork they may
Speaker 2: not have on hand in order to get that reyal id.
Speaker 2: That that's a problem for married folks.
Speaker 1: It may be. You know, it's not too difficult. I'll
Speaker 1: be quite honest. I've never had to change my name.
Speaker 1: It was my my wife that did it. And I
Speaker 1: love that through the Social Security Office as well. And
Speaker 1: so you know that marriage license you can usually get
Speaker 1: those online at your county clerk's website and I do.
Speaker 1: And Jesse has a great you mentioned you know, the
Speaker 1: Commissioner's Corner website. It's a great website where you can
Speaker 1: get on there and he's he's got links to all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. If you're looking for something like
Speaker 1: that and move county.
Speaker 2: I know you're sponsoring House Bill five eighteen that expand
Speaker 2: driver's licensing service in the counties between the Cabinet, Transporission
Speaker 2: Cabinet and the circuit clerks.
Speaker 3: Is that what you're talking about, trying to streamline things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You know how
Speaker 1: still five eighteen is a way to address that backlog,
Speaker 1: that consolidation. What it's done is it's just made less
Speaker 1: places available for folks to go. And so by doing this,
Speaker 1: you're able to create more opportunities for folks to get in.
Speaker 1: There are issues that need to be addressed regarding security
Speaker 1: and those kinds of things, but I think this Department
Speaker 1: of Transportation in Kentucky has worked that out and we
Speaker 1: can easily implement those systems on a cammy wide basis.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've said look at this, and I
Speaker 2: think we all look at and go, well, why why
Speaker 2: did this take to you know, a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: before before the real I standard went no effect on
Speaker 2: May seventh, So coming up next week and now Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Think we got to get I think we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Have to streamline some stuff. And that's not entirely on
Speaker 2: you just you're part of the legislature. I just sit
Speaker 2: back in Ohio with popcorn to watch this go. What
Speaker 2: are you guys doing? And I really can't speak because Ohio,
Speaker 2: we're only forty percent compliance. So it's not like, you know,
Speaker 2: we've got this in conquered either.
Speaker 1: It's not a new thing. It was a big, big fight.
Speaker 1: I wasn't around in the legislature when they moved to
Speaker 1: the regional offices, but from my understanding, it was a
Speaker 1: huge fight. You know, the county clerks were really upset
Speaker 1: about it, and you've got they've got a powerful lobbying group,
Speaker 1: and you know they're able to influence their legislators quite well.
Speaker 1: And so even they continue to push back against this bill,
Speaker 1: they don't want it to come back to them because
Speaker 1: it's just an additional expense and that coll center really
Speaker 1: in their office that they're not really compensated for by
Speaker 1: tax dollars, and so that's part of it. They would
Speaker 1: much rather see it over there at the Department's Transportation.
Speaker 1: I think the Department of transportation probably like having a
Speaker 1: little bit more control and say over the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and so it's just government fighting government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like if you just if you just
Speaker 2: make this the standard across the board like that in Georgia,
Speaker 2: that's easy way to solve it. Next time eveing for
Speaker 2: a license, here's what you got to bring with you.
Speaker 2: I mentioned, oh I was forty percent compliant. I messed
Speaker 2: that up. I'll have we're sixty percent compliant. But you
Speaker 2: guys are forty, Indiana eighty one. At least, we're all
Speaker 2: not New Jersey. That's only seventeen percent compliance there. They've
Speaker 2: they got a long way to go. I don't know
Speaker 2: how you can have seventeen states that don't have half
Speaker 2: the population with real ID and not maybe give them
Speaker 2: a little bit more time, lay this thing a little bit.
Speaker 2: It kind of would make sense. Let everyone catch up
Speaker 2: at this point. But again, we'll have folks just waiting
Speaker 2: in the last minute, hoping for a bailout. Is this
Speaker 2: it's what we do. We you know, we just we
Speaker 2: extend things we shouldn't extend and go No, you know,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to get your bleep together and figure
Speaker 2: this stuff out. And the ask, as I said, it's
Speaker 2: really not that big. You got to bring documents with
Speaker 2: your full legal name, your data, birth you know, the
Speaker 2: obviously if you're US citizen, social security number, and at
Speaker 2: least in Ohio, no, it's two proofs of street address,
Speaker 2: so it could be a utility bill and something else
Speaker 2: to show that's where you are. And then you get
Speaker 2: a little I don't know, a little star in the
Speaker 2: corner of your driver's license, and you can go to
Speaker 2: airports and go through lines and stuff like that. Just
Speaker 2: try to be try to be more secure. But if
Speaker 2: you don't plan on flying at all or maybe going
Speaker 2: to a federal building, should you even bother getting the
Speaker 2: real idea? I men know plenty of people just they
Speaker 2: I don't travel. If I go anywhere, I drive, but
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm never gonna fly. So would you need it?
Speaker 1: You know, no, you could survive with just the regular life.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things that folks who
Speaker 1: really push back against this is there concern that there's
Speaker 1: going to be some type of a federal database where
Speaker 1: they're capturing everybody's information. One of the beauties of our
Speaker 1: system is that we have this decentralized government, the kind
Speaker 1: of each state does its own thing, and even each
Speaker 1: county kind of does its own thing, but we all
Speaker 1: come together as part of this thing. And so as
Speaker 1: you see this, this large federal oversight come down to
Speaker 1: capture everybody's information to kind of monitor them. I even
Speaker 1: hear stories, and I don't know if they're true or not.
Speaker 1: I hear stories that these things seem when you go
Speaker 1: by federal buildings or something like that. And I've seen
Speaker 1: pictures online of people, you know, show them maybe some
Speaker 1: kind of chip in there, and r if i'd be
Speaker 1: I've looked at some of these things, you know, through
Speaker 1: a pretty bright light here at least thinking tucky, and
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like that at them.
Speaker 2: Well, if you ever try to, if you ever look
Speaker 2: at it this way, it's it's like a credit card.
Speaker 2: You know, you walk into Kroger. Not every terminal is
Speaker 2: going to go off with your credit card is because
Speaker 2: it's reading it. You have to actually physic or touch it.
Speaker 2: So we don't have the technology. It's not it's not
Speaker 2: that way in that idea. Just think of a credit card.
Speaker 2: That's that's the extent of your technology. When it comes
Speaker 2: to a chip reader, you got to be fairly close
Speaker 2: to the reader for the thing to go off. It's
Speaker 2: not just walking by the federal building. That's silly.
Speaker 1: I agree with you completely on that point, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's and in terms of just capturing information, I mean,
Speaker 1: we it's one thing for a bank, or it's one
Speaker 1: thing for your grocery store to capture your information, but
Speaker 1: it's a totally different thing when the government does it.
Speaker 1: You know, we have those Fourth Amendments protections, we have,
Speaker 1: you know, a constitution that says that the government can't
Speaker 1: just grab our information and kind of a drag net fashion.
Speaker 1: And so that's one of the reasons that some of
Speaker 1: these folks that Congress and Thomas Massey pushed back on
Speaker 1: so hard. It's a slippery slope once we give up
Speaker 1: just our general basic information to the government. I mean,
Speaker 1: how much more are they're going to take from where
Speaker 1: they're going to go from there?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll push back and say I get I get
Speaker 2: to complaint there, Steve Oh, But if you're of that group,
Speaker 2: then you shouldn't have any ID, no driver's license, no
Speaker 2: state issued, caired, nothing, because the information that you're going
Speaker 2: to show them to prove to the in this case,
Speaker 2: the state through the federal government or the federal gum
Speaker 2: through the state is to just reinforce the information you
Speaker 2: already gave them. You're not giving them new information. You're
Speaker 2: you're just breaking in and verifying who you are. They
Speaker 2: already have the information that this doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: It's different groups, right, I mean, that's the difference between
Speaker 1: you know, a state level versus a federal level of
Speaker 1: having all that information. If it's at a state level,
Speaker 1: it's harder for the FED the FED to get and
Speaker 1: vice versa. So it's keeping that decentralized, that broken up
Speaker 1: government that kind of restricts power from getting too big
Speaker 1: and letting anybody take over.
Speaker 2: But you're presenting it not to the federal government. You're
Speaker 2: presenting it to the state. They're just verifying who you are.
Speaker 2: This isn't the federal government, this is this is the
Speaker 2: county clerks.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's really objecting to the state, yeah
Speaker 1: knowing licensing or doing those kinds. I think that the
Speaker 1: objection is that there's a federal government that's captured all
Speaker 1: of this information.
Speaker 2: But you're not going What I'm saying is you're not
Speaker 2: going to the FEDS. You're going to the state to
Speaker 2: get the real ID. They're just verifying who you say
Speaker 2: you are. This information is. It's not all going to
Speaker 2: the it's not all uploaded the FED or I guess
Speaker 2: they're already having the database anyway. I mean, if you know,
Speaker 2: if you do something to trigger you know, federal government,
Speaker 2: let's say the FBI involved, they're going to pull your
Speaker 2: state records.
Speaker 1: I think go through process.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I gotta get going, and I appreciate the
Speaker 2: time as always A state Rep. Steve down in Kentucky again,
Speaker 2: only about forty percent of Kentucky ands eligible for a
Speaker 2: driver's license have real idea that standard goes into effect
Speaker 2: next week, and he's working on legislation to maybe streamline.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit better and it's a long time coming.
Speaker 2: We'll find out what happens with the ask of a
Speaker 2: temporary retreat for Kentucky and sixteen other states.
Speaker 3: We'll see how they goes.
Speaker 2: Steve all the best man. Thanks for checking out. I
Speaker 2: appreciate your time go to speak with you.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much for having me on take care.
Speaker 2: I have no idea why this is such a big deal.
Speaker 2: To be honest with you as a as a small
Speaker 2: governments government kind of guy.
Speaker 3: They already have the info.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know what warrior for, I don't
Speaker 2: know what the battle is here. Somebody helped me slowly.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred other