FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dotty Griffith, Public Education Director, ACLU Foundation of Texas, (512) 923-1909; [email protected]
HOUSTON — The following may be attributed to ACLU of Texas Executive Director Terri Burke: “The driver’s license ID bills were debated during both the regular and special sessions and lawmakers correctly determined they were wrong for Texas. This last minute add-on amounts to playing a dirty trick on the people of Texas.”
“Many Texans will be – at the very least – wildly inconvenienced by the 11th hour provisions that may mean you need a passport or birth certificate to renew your driver’s license. These new rules will cause lines to grow longer and individuals will be wrongly denied driver’s licenses. Just think, many of us may not have, nor need, passports and have no idea where our birth certificates are.
“The main result will be to increase the number of unlicensed and therefore uninsured drivers in Texas. Some authorities estimate the number of uninsured drivers in Texas to be one of every four. Why would the legislature adopt a provision that will drive that figure even higher?”
