{"id":45974,"date":"2024-02-13T14:30:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T22:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=45974"},"modified":"2024-02-13T14:30:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T22:30:42","slug":"california-bill-would-require-draft-registration-for-drivers-licenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/13\/california-bill-would-require-draft-registration-for-drivers-licenses\/","title":{"rendered":"California Bill Would Require Draft Registration for Driver’s Licenses"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill<\/a> to require applicants for California driver\u2019s licenses ages 16 through 25 to consent to registration with the Selective Service System<\/a> for a possible military draft, SB 1081<\/a>, has been introduced again in the California legislature.<\/p>\n

The sole initial sponsor of SB 1081<\/a> is state Senator Bob Archuleta<\/a> (D-Pico Rivera), who represents Senate District 30<\/a> in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.<\/p>\n

With no legislation on Selective Service<\/a> under active consideration<\/a> in Congress, this California bill is the most significant legislative proposal related to Selective Service currently under consideration anywhere in the U.S. It will be the highest lobbying priority<\/a> this year for the Selective Service System<\/a> nationally and for its California state director John A. Arbogast<\/a>, local and state draft board members<\/a>, and military reservists assigned to Selective Service support duty in California.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

California is overwhelmingly the most populous state that doesn\u2019t already require (or provide as a default) Selective Service registration for driver\u2019s licenses for draft-age men. (Other such states include New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon, and several other less populous states.) Since the repeal in 2020 of the former Federal requirement to register for the draft to receive Federal aid for higher education<\/a>, the Selective Service System has relied almost entirely on state driver\u2019s license laws<\/a> to drive (pun intended) any limited compliance<\/a> it is able to obtain with draft registration.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia does not share driver\u2019s license [information with the Selective service System] \u2014 so, hey, move to California and you\u2019re basically exempted from being drafted.\u201d<\/p>\n

[<\/em>Testimony of Dr. Bernard Rostker<\/a>, Director of the Selective Service System 1979-1981, to the <\/em>National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service<\/a>, <\/em>24 April 2019<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Like similar laws<\/a> in some (but by no means all) other states, SB 1081<\/a> would allow applicants for driver\u2019s licenses to \u201copt out\u201d of being registered with the Selective Service System. But opting out would be incriminating official written evidence of knowledge of the registration requirement, which would otherwise be the hardest element for the government to prove<\/a> in a criminal prosecution for \u201cknowing and willful\u201d failure or refusal to register for the draft. That makes the putative \u201copt out\u201d option largely meaningless.<\/p>\n

At least six previous attempts<\/a> over the last twenty years to require California residents to register for the draft in order to get state driver\u2019s licenses have been defeated<\/a> in the state legislature or vetoed<\/a> by the Governor. But that doesn\u2019t mean that SB 1081<\/a> won\u2019t pass this year.<\/p>\n

In the past, similar bills have run up against provisions of the California state Constitution and case law from the California Supreme Court protecting data privacy and restricting use of motor vehicle and driver\u2019s license funds and fees for unrelated purposes. Some of those issues were raised in the written testimony<\/a> and the in-person testimony I gave on behalf of the Identity Project<\/a> at a hearing in Sacramento in 2011. More recently, I\u2019ve testified against similar legislation<\/a> in other states. Some of these talking points<\/a> I outlined in opposition to the proposal considered and defeated last year in Massachusetts are specific to Massachusetts law and history, but most apply equally in California.<\/p>\n

This time around, SB 1081<\/a> would require the California Department of Motor vehicles to \u201csolicit\u201d Federal funding for Selective Service connectivity, and provides that, \u201cImplementation of this section shall be contingent upon the department\u2019s receipt of federal funds to pay $________ of the initial startup costs to implement this section.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress has never appropriated any money specifically to reimburse states for their costs of connecting driver\u2019s license databases with the Selective Service System. But SB 1081<\/a> would require only a one-time infusion of Federal funding, in an as-yet-undetermined but possible small amount, for startup costs. That could potentially come from a portion of a general-purpose Federal block grant to the state. So opponents of the draft should take the threat of SB 1081<\/a> seriously. We can\u2019t count on lack of Federal funding to prevent implementation of this bill, if it is enacted.<\/p>\n

Most state legislators, like most members of Congress, have little if any familiarity with the status of contingency planning for a draft; the role of that contingency planning in enabling planning for larger, longer, less popular wars<\/a>; the failure<\/a> of draft registration; or the reasons why the Federal government is turning to state motor vehicle licensing agencies<\/a> in an inevitably futile effort to salvage this failed<\/a> Federal program.<\/p>\n

California residents should urge their state Senators and Assembly members to oppose SB 1081<\/a> or any similar bill in the state Senate or Assembly. If you don\u2019t live in California, spread the word to any friends in California. This is likely to be a \u201csleeper\u201d bill considered with little public awareness or debate.<\/p>\n

Edward Hasbrouck maintains the <\/i>Resisters.info<\/i><\/a> website and publishes the <\/i>\u201cResistance News\u201d newsletter<\/i><\/a>. He was <\/i>imprisoned in 1983-1984<\/i><\/a> for organizing resistance to draft registration.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill to require applicants for California driver\u2019s licenses ages 16 through 25 to consent to registration with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft, SB 1081, has been introduced again in the California legislature. The sole initial sponsor of SB 1081 is state Senator Bob Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera), who represents Senate District […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-45974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45980,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45974\/revisions\/45980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45974"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}