Legislation - LD2304 and LD2309

Attached below are pdfs of LD2304 and LD2309 - the latter as Public Law 648.

"What is the difference?" people ask.

LD2304 requires that an individual applying for a Driver's License be a resident of Maine.

LD2309 requires that the State of Maine ensure that only those legally present in the United States receive a Driver's License in Maine.

LD2304 applies to individuals; LD2309 applies to the State of Maine.

Zach Heiden at MCLU clarified my slightly lengthier comparison [I edited his reply for syntax - cfm.]:

Another way to say it is that LD2304 simply requires that applicants have a Maine address for their Driver's License, and it is as simple as bringing in a piece of mail to the BMV showing where you live. The law is flexible to allow, for example, people who may be temporarily living in a shelter to use that as their address. If you have no other way to prove your address, you can go to the Secretary Of State and sign an affidavit about where you live.

LD2309, on the other hand, gets the Maine BMV involved in monitoring compliance with a whole large set of very complicated federal laws. It is not simply a matter of showing where you live - you have to submit your most personal data to the State and Federal government for analysis and storage, without any adequate assurance that the material is going to be kept safe or that in won't be used for discriminatory or other inappropriate purposes.

LD2309 does not require one to be a Maine resident to get a license. LD2309 moves beyond just individual requirements to the State issuing the license. It requires not the applicant, but the Secretary of State and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to enforce Federal rules. The purpose of the legislation, the very first line of LD2309 notes:

The Secretary of State may not issue a license to an applicant unless the applicant presents to the Secretary of State valid documentary evidence of legal presence in the United States.

LD2309 requires the State of Maine to implement the first steps of RealID.

A Driver's License is a State of Maine document. Chertoff and Homeland Security are hijacking that document and converting it into a national document at the expense of the State. The bogus fiscal note - because it is an election year - puts off funding even of the initial program. Of the probably $70M price tag it makes no mention.

LD2309 is not about residency. It is about requiring the State of Maine to enforce Homeland Security rules. It is about turning the State of Maine into a proxy police force for Homeland Security.

Furthermore, LD2309 requires the State of Maine to share whatever data it has with Homeland Security, other military, police, Federal and State agencies, corporations and nations. The RealID Act gives Chertoff the authority to arbitrarily extend the data that must be provided to Homeland Security.

It requires the state to fingerprint, or have retinal scans or facial recognition of every person applying for either a drivers license or non-driver photo ID which is then archived in perpetuity in the state and federal databases.