Civics Education
Virginia State Government



Section II: Virginia State Government

Guiding Question: How is Virginia state government structured and organized to perform its responsibilities?

Scenario: In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed the REAL ID Act. The act requires the states to use a standardized, federally approved driver’s license or other ID that includes full legal name and address, along with holograms or watermarks that are capable of being read by a digital scanner. While other IDs such as passports and military identification will be accepted, the REAL ID Act made clear that without the new ID, individuals would not be able to board planes or enter federal buildings. Initially the law was to take effect by May 2008; implementation was delayed until December 2009, then again until May 2011, and again until January 2013. The cause of these ongoing federal extensions is the outcry and opposition from many state legislatures across the country.

Concerned with the cost of the unfunded mandate, citizen privacy in light of a planned national identification database, and a sense of frustration with the national government’s imposition of an expensive and uniform regulation that paid little attention to individual state concerns, many states have enacted various anti-REAL ID legislation. The Commonwealth of Virginia joined state resistance to the Federal REAL ID act in 2009 with legislation that, while not completely rejecting all the provisions of the REAL ID Act, prohibited any Virginia ID (or database) connected to a Virginia ID from including such private data as DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans, or tax or investment information.

While state challenges to federal policies have been made throughout American history, it appears that explicit state challenges to a number of federal policy regulations have increased in recent years. The balance of power between the national and state governments continues to evolve and play out within and across many policy issues that are currently being debated between the three branches that make up Virginia’s state government.


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