A bipartisan group of politicians and law enforcement officials pleaded Wednesday for Gov. Bill Ritter to veto a bill that they said would make it easier to get a Colorado driver’s license.
Former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm and Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman warned that efforts to expand the list of acceptable primary documents to get an ID pose a security risk to the country.
“A driver’s license in the wrong hands is more dangerous than a machine gun,” Lamm said.
House Bill 1313 would let an applicant for a driver’s license present a U.S. passport or an ID from any other state as proof of legal residency in the country.
Currently, applicants with a passport must provide another form of identification to qualify for a license.
Applicants with driver’s licenses from 16 other states with less-secure identity-checking processes, including Texas, New Mexico and Utah, also must currently provide extra proof of their identity.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson contended that allowing IDs from those states as proof of identification would weaken Colorado’s tougher standards for getting a driver’s license.
“If this bill is allowed to go forward, we will no longer be able to brag about that,” he said.
Maintaining a tougher standard to get a Colorado driver’s license or ID card is an important defense against terrorism, identity theft and illegal immigration, officials said.
Lamm said the bill is a legislative incursion into a power that belongs in the governor’s hands.
“The governor has the authority to make any changes he thinks necessary through the rule-making authority in the Department of Revenue,” Lamm said. “This legislation compromises the authority of the governor.”
In fact, the Revenue Department has held hearings this year as it prepares to adopt rules that would not allow passports or some driver’s licenses to serve as primary documents to get a Colorado ID.
That rules-making process was prompted by a Denver district judge’s decision in December that the state violated the law when it adopted its ID- document rules without allowing public comment.
Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Ritter, said the governor is still reviewing the bill.
“HB 1313 is one of about 200 bills awaiting a decision by Gov. Ritter,” Dreyer said. “The deadline is June 4, and Gov. Ritter is giving this bill the careful consideration it deserves.”
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
