BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: sb 251
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: correa
VERSION: 2/10/11
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: March 29, 2011
SUBJECT:
Driver's license: registration with the Selective Service System
DESCRIPTION:
This bill deems that a person is consenting to registration with
the federal Selective Service System when he applies to the
Department of Motor Vehicles for an original or renewal driver's
license, provided he is required to be registered with the
Selective Service System.
ANALYSIS:
Existing state law requires that to drive a motor vehicle on a
highway, street, or off-street parking facility a person must
hold a valid driver's license. To obtain an original driver's
license, a person applies and pays the required fee to the
Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), provides proof of legal
presence in the United States plus other specified information,
and must pass a written test, a behind-the-wheel driving test,
and a vision test. A driver's license is valid for a period of
five years at which time the driver must apply to DMV for a
renewal.
Existing federal law requires all men who are 18 through 25
years of age to register with the Selective Service System
within 30 days of their 18th birthday. The Selective Service
System is an independent federal agency whose mission is to
register men for a possible military draft, which enables the
nation to expand the military forces rapidly and efficiently
during a period of warfare or other national emergency. Failure
to register is a felony violation, and violators are subject to
a fine of up to $250,000 and/or up to five years of
imprisonment. In addition, violators lose eligibility for
federal benefits, including student loans and grants, job
training, and employment opportunities with federal agencies.
SB 251 (CORREA) Page 2
This bill deems that a person is consenting to registration with
the federal Selective Service System when he applies to DMV for
an original or renewal driver's license, provided he is required
to be registered with the Selective Service System.
This bill also requires DMV to include the following notice on
the driver's license application indicating that the applicant
is consenting to registration with the Selective Service System:
By submitting this application, I am consenting to
registration with the Selective Service System, if required
by federal law. If I am under 18 years of age, I
understand that I will be registered upon reaching 18 years
of age.
This bill requires DMV to forward to the Selective Service
System, in an electronic format, the personal information
necessary to register the person.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . According to the sponsor, the Selective Service
System, California has one of the lowest rates of Selective
Service System registration in the nation. Men who are 18 to
25 years of age who fail to register with the Selective
Service System, as required by federal law, face possible
federal penalties and the loss of federal benefits, including
student financial assistance, federal employment, job training
under the Workforce Investment Act, and citizenship for
immigrants. The sponsor estimates that the failure to
register with the Selective Service System has resulted in the
lifetime loss of approximately $100 million in potential
benefits over the last three years for men in California.
While a draft is not anticipated in the foreseeable future, by
requiring young men to consent to their registration with the
Selective Service System when they apply for a driver's
license, this bill seeks to promote fairness and equity of any
future draft, ensure that important federal benefits
associated with the registration requirement are not lost, and
promote compliance with federal law.
2.The facts . Based on 2009 data provided by the Selective
Service System, approximately 86 percent of men in California
who are 18 to 25 years of age have registered with the
Selective Service System. California is ranked 47th out of
the 50 states with regard to the registration of 18 and 19
SB 251 (CORREA) Page 3
year-olds. No data were provided to indicate the state's
ranking for 20-25 year-olds.
3.DMV practice . In 1989, the Legislature passed and the
Governor signed SB 1557 (Deddeh), Chapter 496, which required
all state agencies to cooperate with the Selective Service
System "in efforts to publicize the necessity of, and
requirements for, compliance with the federal military
Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. Sec. 451 et seq.)." In
response to this legislation, DMV entered into a memorandum of
understanding with the Selective Service System in 1990
authorizing the release of personal information of license
holders who are required to register with the Selective
Service System. Since that time, DMV has provided the
Selective Service System with certain personal information,
including the name, address, birthdate, and driver's license
number, of men 17 to 25 years of age who apply for an original
driver's license or identification card. Submittal of this
information is not considered compliance with the registration
requirement of the Military Selective Service Act; rather, the
Selective Service System matches this information with its
registry and notifies any person that has not registered of
the requirement. The committee may wish to consider whether
DMV's current practice of providing personal information to
the Selective Service System already extends beyond the
mandate imposed on state agencies by SB 1557 that they assist
in efforts to publicize the requirement to register with the
Selective Service System.
4.Practical impact on DMV and the public . This bill would have
at least two practical impacts on both DMV and the public.
First, DMV would have to revise its driver's license
application, a process it recently completed when it was
required to add a checkbox for applicants to indicate whether
or not they are veterans of the armed forces. Furthermore,
adding another item would require an additional page for the
application, which would increase the amount of paper used and
the costs of postage for DMV and for the applicant.
Second, in recent years, customer wait times at DMV field
offices have increased substantially. For example, the annual
average wait time during the 2007-08 fiscal year was 19:32
minutes for customers who did not have an appointment and 78
percent of customers were served within 30 minutes of arrival.
During the 2009-10 fiscal year, the annual wait time doubled
to 43:26 minutes and only about 44 percent of customers were
SB 251 (CORREA) Page 4
served within 30 minutes. DMV estimates that adding this item
to the application form will add approximately 30 to 60
seconds per transaction.
5.Policy issues . This bill raises a number of policy questions
that the committee may wish to consider.
Appropriate assignment of responsibility? By providing that
applicants for an original or renewal driver's license are
consenting to registration with the Selective Service System,
this bill gives the state responsibility for an individual's
choice to follow a federal law.
Relationship between a driver's license and a military draft?
Registration with the Selective Service System is unrelated to
operating a motor vehicle and conditioning a driver's license
on such registration may be counterproductive if people who
want to avoid registering choose instead to drive without a
license. More significantly, by denying a person a driver's
license if he opted not to register with the Selective Service
without an opportunity to appeal or overturn the decision,
this bill raises questions of due process. There may be
legitimate reasons why someone may choose not to register, yet
there exists no process to obtain a license when such a choice
is made.
Outside the scope of DMV? Over the years, the Legislature has
assigned many responsibilities to DMV that are beyond the
scope of its mission, including registering people to vote,
registering people as organ donors, facilitating the
collection of delinquent child support payments, and allowing
veterans to consent to having DMV give their personal
information to the Department of Veterans Affairs for the
purpose of receiving information about benefits. Because DMV
is often the first point of contact that many people have with
government, it has been convenient to assign DMV these
additional responsibilities. Where will it end? These
responsibilities add costs to operate DMV, require additional
personnel, and increase the amount of time a transaction at a
DMV field office requires. Furthermore, this bill goes
further than other tasks prescribed in current law because the
Selective Service is a federal, not state, program and because
the applicant would be denied the license if he opted not to
register.
Violation of right to privacy? In 1972, 63 percent of
SB 251 (CORREA) Page 5
Californians supported Proposition 11, which added "privacy"
to the list of inalienable rights that the California
Constitution recognizes in a person. The ballot arguments in
support of the measure read that the right to privacy is "the
right to be left alone?It prevents government and business
interests from collecting and stockpiling unnecessary
information about us and from misusing information gathered
for one purpose in order to serve other purposes or to
embarrass us." By requiring consent to register with the
Selective Service as a condition of receiving a driver's
license, as well as by requiring DMV to share an applicant's
personal information with the federal government for a purpose
unrelated to driving, the committee may wish to consider
whether this bill violates the intent of Proposition 11.
Appropriate use of limited state resources? Given the state's
ongoing fiscal crisis, is it feasible to require DMV to take a
greater role in a federal program? Is it appropriate to
require DMV to use revenues derived from sources related to
motor vehicles for purposes unrelated to them? In their
letter of opposition, the California State Automobile
Association and the Automobile Club of Southern California
oppose the bill unless it is amended to provide funding from a
non-motorist source. They point out that DMV is primarily
funded by taxes and fees paid by motorists and that Article
XIX of the California Constitution places limits on the use of
such revenues "to administration and enforcement of laws
regulating the use, operation, or registration of vehicles
used upon the public streets and highways of this State,
including the enforcement of traffic and vehicle laws by state
agencies?"
6.Opposition . This bill has generated substantial opposition
from individuals who believe that people should retain the
right to voice their dissent to military service by refusing
to register with the Selective Service System. They write, in
part:
For reasons of conscience, some young men do not want their
personal information sent to the Selective Service. The
Selective Service System refuses to acknowledge young men
who wish to voice their conscientious objections to
military service. The only way that young men can express
their opposition to conscription is to refuse to register.
Young people have the right to makes choices and to
dissent. That opportunity would be lost should SB 251
SB 251 (CORREA) Page 6
become law.
7.Other states . Thirty-seven other states plus the District of
Columbia have all enacted into law requirements linking the
driver's licenses to registration with the Selective Service
System. According to the sponsor, most of these laws are
similar to the one proposed in this bill whereby applying for
a driver's license is automatically considered consent to
register with the Selective Service System. It is important
to note that Nevada, New York, Texas, and the District of
Columbia have all enacted such laws, but remain lower ranked
than California with regard to the registration of 18 and 19
year-olds. Of those, it appears New York requires automatic
consent as this bill does, while Nevada, Texas, and the
District of Columbia ask applicants if they wish to consent.
8.Previous legislation . There have been at least four previous
attempts to pass legislation tying the driver's license to
registration with the Selective Service System, as follows:
AB 1661 (Cook), 2007, held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee
SB 1276 (Speier), 2002, held in the Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 1572 (Briggs), 2001, held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee
AB 2574 (Briggs), 2000, held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee
1.Suggested amendments . If this bill were to move forward, the
committee may wish to consider the following amendments that
(a) clarify on the driver's license application which
individuals would be subject to registration with the
Selective Service System and (b) remove the automatic consent
for individuals who are not yet 18 and thus not required to
register:
By submitting this application, if I am a man who is 18 to
25 years of age, I am consenting to registration with the
Selective Service System, if required by federal law. If I
am under 18 years of age, I understand that I will be
registered upon reaching 18 years of age.
10. Double-referral . This bill is double-referred to
this committee and the Committee on Rules. Therefore, if the
committee passes this bill, it will then be re-referred to the
SB 251 (CORREA) Page 7
Rules Committee.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
March 23, 2011)
SUPPORT: Jewish War Veterans of the United States
1 individual
OPPOSED: Automobile Club of Southern California (unless
amended)
California State Automobile Association (unless
amended)
Friends Committee on Legislation of California
The Identity Project
91 individuals