After uproar, Missouri stops scanning concealed gun permits

Republicans have spent several weeks crying foul over Missouri’s new drivers license system, which requires the scanning and retention of personal documents, including birth certificates, marriage licenses and — up until Tuesday’s announcement — concealed carry permits.

“It has been determined that the scanning and retention of concealed carry certificates are not essential to the integrity of the license issuance process,” Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, said in a statement announcing the change. “We will continue to work with policymakers to ensure the security and privacy of our license issuance process.”

Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, said he sees the change as “a step in the right direction” but he stressed the need further reform.

“To have the acknowledgement of this controversy over the procedure is the first step,” he said. “I think there needs to be a bigger discussion about the scanning of source documents.”

Republicans repeatedly have characterized the new drivers license program as a way for Nixon’s administration to share private information with the federal government, either through the federal Real ID Act or other means. The Missouri Legislature passed a law in 2009 requiring the state to opt out of the anti-terrorism initiative that, among other provisions, mandates the collection of documents for state licenses to meet federal standards required to board airplanes and enter federal courthouses.

The Department of Revenue maintains that the electronic copies are held at a data center in Jefferson City, which has only aroused fears over the potential for identity theft. Department of Revenue spokesman Ted Farnen said the department “will engage in a systematic process to remove” concealed carry documents that have already been scanned into the system.

Nixon’s announcement on the policy change came one day after the governor accepted the resignation of the head of the Department of Revenue, Brian Long, after weeks of criticism from legislators.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the Department of Revenue in recent weeks, has threatened to cut department’s funding for drivers licenses unless it halts the entire scanning policy.

“(Tuesday’s change) doesn’t address all of the other things — your mortgage documents, your marriage license, all of the other things that (the Department of) Revenue now requires you to bring in,” he said.

Last week, it was revealed that the state Highway Patrol gave a federal Social Security fraud investigator a list of all Missourians with concealed carry permits to use in an investigation to determine whether anyone who had met the requirements for a concealed carry permit was fraudulently receiving benefits based on a mental disability.

Officials have said the agent was not able to open the document and dropped his investigation after discussing it with his superiors, but documents released this week further reveal that the investigation was a partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was trying to determine whether anyone knowingly concealing a mental disability had illegally obtained a concealed carry permit.

“Quite a bit more happened than they told us,” Schaefer said. He accused the investigators of attempting to create a “front door gun list.”

medicaid expansion

For Nixon, the ongoing dispute is a distraction from his efforts to persuade the Legislature to approve an expansion of Missouri’s Medicaid program. Under the federal Affordable Care Act, the state could expand the health care program for the poor to cover some 300,000 additional Missourians with most of the costs going to the federal government.

Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature has repeatedly balked at the proposal, mostly because of the expansion’s reliance on the federal government.

On Tuesday, Nixon rallied with hundreds of Medicaid expansion supporters in the Capitol rotunda — one of the largest crowds at the Capitol this session. After the rally, Nixon said Republicans are raising issues with the Department of Revenue to “divert the attention of the public from what needs to get done over the next five weeks.”

But tensions over the Revenue Department are unlikely to die down soon.

House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, has called on the state attorney general’s office to appoint an independent panel to investigate the Department of Revenue and its handling of private information.

Dempsey sent a letter to the department on Monday demanding that it “cease and desist” the scanning of source documents for drivers licenses. Meanwhile, the state auditor has launched an audit of the Revenue Department, and House and Senate committees continue to hold hearings into the matter.