A Denver judge set aside until Wednesday an order tossing a Colorado policy that driver’s license and ID card applicants provide two forms of identification from a state-created list.
The stay clears the way for state motor vehicle offices to be open Monday and Tuesday to process license applications under rules Denver Chief District Judge Larry Naves said were derived illegally.
Revenue Director M. Michael Cooke said she’s worried Naves’ order may have hamstrung the state’s ability to issue licenses without fear of fraud.
“I have a statutory responsibility to know who we’re issuing documents to,” Cooke said Friday. “I don’t know how we do that without the process we have in place.”
Applicants are required to prove identity, age and legal presence in the United States in order to get a license or ID card.
Naves determined the Division of Motor Vehicles must stop imposing restrictions that applicants can only provide certain kinds of identification because, by law, the rules must first go through a public hearing process.
The rules have been in place in some form since 1979. No public hearings have been held.
Cooke said she’d rather “shut the system down,” as she did Friday following Naves’ ruling, if she lacks confidence in any new process.
“The bottom line is that on my watch, we’re not going to do anything that we know will result in issuing fraudulent documents,” she said. “I’d just as soon shut the system down instead of doing that.”
Cooke, who said she will resign when Gov-elect Bill Ritter takes office, stopped driver’s license offices from processing new applications Friday, a day after Naves struck down the two-document policy and ordered DMV to issue written denials to anyone refused a license.
The written denial order was “a curve we did not expect,” said Cooke, who also admitted the state had no contingency plan ready in the event Naves ruled against them.
“Frankly, we didn’t expect the injunction,” Cooke said.
Naves stayed the written denial portion of his order for 30 days. Previously a person could receive an oral denial, return with more identification and be denied again for a different reason, sometimes by a different DMV employee.
The decision to close DMV offices Friday was “based on faulty reasoning and fear-mongering,” according to lawyers representing several people who sued the state. Many of those people are homeless and had difficulty obtaining licenses and ID cards because often the documents proving their identity were not on the state’s approved list.
“It is absurd and irresponsible for DMV to suggest that accepting U.S. passports as proof of identity and lawful presence would put Coloradans at risk,” said Sean Connelly and Tim Macdonald, attorneys who argued for the injunction.
About 750 people apply for a driver’s license each day. It’s unclear how many applications are filed daily for an ID card.
Renewals were processed as normal Friday in the state’s 52 license offices, Cooke said.
The state asked for a stay because the state’s operation is too big to change procedures “on such short notice.”
In addition, the state said, staff would require training on how to process license and ID card applications, assistant attorney general Carolyn Lievers wrote in her request.
Lievers said the state would appeal Naves’ decision to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
