A special Missouri House committee appointed to look into why the Department of Revenue began scanning documents of driver's license and conceal-carry applicants has wrapped up its series of hearings this summer.
The committee had initially tried to force members of Governor Jay Nixon's (D) administration to testify by issuing subpoenas, but a Cole County judge quashed them. They later testified voluntarily after the Governor signed a new law that ended the scanning policy for driver's license applicants. Scanning of documents for conceal carry weapons applicants ended in April. State Representative Stanley Cox (R, Sedalia) chairs the committee, which he says is trying to determine if the Nixon Administration was trying to implement the federal Real ID Act.
"The Department of Revenue, and the Governor's staff, have protested and said they were not implementing Real ID," Cox said. "It's pretty obvious to me, despite their claims to the contrary, that they were doing many things to implement Real ID."
State Representative Gina Mitten of St. Louis, one of the few Democrats on the committee, disagrees. She says Revenue officials were trying to provide a secure photo identification system for citizens, but were not seeking to deliberately implement the 2005 Real ID Act, which was forbidden by a state law passed in 2009.
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