Why should Texas pay a dime, much less $34 million, when there is no impetus or consequence to do anything from a federal edict? Merritt, and others from TCCP's cadres, insist that it's a way to control immigration. Coyotes simply find other ways of defrauding the system using the black market for hacks. Texans continue to compete with black market labor. Real ID doesn't stop employers from preferring under the table labor and is a hidden reason why its "immigration cause" contributed to it's suffocation. While locals are taking more time to extract the truth from the lies, it is my duty to inform all who supported the anti-Real ID efforts in the past that Tommy Merritt intends to politically marry voter ID to Real ID so that it has another lifetime next legislature. It's a foolhardy prospect because even the federal administrators of Real ID, namely DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, have no intentions of enforcing Real ID regulations due to 36 states nullifying the results. When the DHS Secretary says it's dead - it's dead. Civil liberty advocates are now more concerned about the fusion center intelligence hubs getting development monies from the DHS appropriations bills. I would say that Voter ID and Real ID were successfully decoupled, in concept, last session due to significant holes in the Carter Baker Act. Texans may pursue a voter ID if they like - but Real ID may not be on the books to deliver upon with any federal muscle. A bill is in the federal hopper to repeal and dispose of the whole dead horse 10th Amendment advocates have been beating, called the Real ID Act, for close to 7 months. What Real ID will never be is a way to shore up identity security and hamper illegal immigration. No matter how much Merritt and Wayne Christiansen yell it from the top of their lungs - its all air and no earth. Texas can stand on it's own without the federal Real ID Act.