Army wife quilter

April 11, 2011

I have never been a political activist BUT!

Last year when my CA drivers license was about to expire, I call the state DMV to see if I could renew my licence online.  I have renewed this way before, However, they have a limit on how many times you can do this.  I was told I had to come in to the DMV and renew in person.  Well as it happened we are living in TX which makes it difficult to just pop into the DMV and do this.  As my husband is in the military and his home of record is CA, his licence is good indefinitely until he is able to return back to CA to update his licence.  So I thought that they would have a policy in place for dependents of active military members.  I thought wrong. 

A few years ago the federal government changed the statue for dependent spouses to be able to stay residents of the home of record of the active duty military member.  That is great but that doesn't help if you still want to vote in the state of your home of record and can't get a licence there too.  I was upset I couldn't get my license renewed in CA so my only option was to go to DPS in TX and get a new drivers licence.  My husband and I call the local State representatives to inquire about this problem.  They listened to our complaint and agreed with are problem.  Dependent spouses of active duty service members should have the same priviage of having an indefinate license until they are able to return back to the state to update there license. 

  At the time we were told that it was to late in the year to do any thing about it but the next calender year they would work on it.  A few months went by and we had quite forgotten about it.  Then in Jan we got a call from the office of the state representative who took on the situation to fix the problem.  I am happy to say that for the last 8 months the local representatives have been working on a solution to this problem. We have gotten periodic email updating us on the progess of the bill.

Today we go an email saying that the bill will be heard today on the floor in the state senate.  I am really excited.  I hope that they agree to change the state law. 

This will not help me because I already surrendered my CA license, But it will help others that have had this problem or are in the future going to have this problem. 

What makes it really exciting to us is that our local reprentatives heard and acted on this.  A lot of times it is really disappointing because they listen nod and "say I see".  We all know that means "and this effects me how" and "I really don't care, thank you for your call or inquirey." 

Well I just want to say thank you to the State reps out there that take on the local causes and make it there own.  That is why we put them there and that is why we let them stay.

1 comment:

  1. WooHoo! I forfitted my utah liscense already too, but I'm proud of you for taking initative and fixing our problem! Sweet.

    ReplyDelete

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