On June 11th, the Chronicle ran an AP story about how Montana unveiled a new driver’s license. Now some of you might remember how we had this little “show down” with the homeland security and supposedly the feds backed down. Keep in mind that Montana passed a law preventing us from complying with the Feds. Now in the article there are a couple of paragraphs that stood out for me.

“Roberts said Montana followed recommendations from a national umbrella group of license administrators, which in turn became many of the standards adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of its Real ID push.
Roberts said Montana’s early move to secure its license with new identity theft features allowed Montana to tell Homeland Security earlier this year that the state’s license was already moving toward enhanced features.
“Real ID just adopted the standards that the states had set for themselves with the national umbrella group,” Roberts said.”

Now maybe it’s just my cynical nature, but sounds to me like maybe there was a back room deal struck with the Feds that allowed Montana government to save face. If Montana is instituting the same rules the feds wanted, then what was the showdown over? What’s the difference (legally – Montana Law) between not complying with the Feds, and complying to State regulation that is the same as the Feds?
Maybe it’s just me, but I think this smells of a “snow job” from our state government.