JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon enacted a law Monday putting an immediate halt to a controversial policy of making electronic copies of birth certificates and other personal documents from people applying for drivers licenses.
The new law reverses a six-month-old policy that had caused considerable stir in the Republican-led Legislature. Lawmakers had convened several investigatory committees looking into the alleged violation of Missourians’ privacy rights.
The legislation signed by the Democratic governor bars the Department of Revenue from making or keeping copies of documents presented by people seeking drivers licenses or state identification cards.
It requires the department to securely destroy all previously copied documents by the end of this year.
Nixon announced he had signed the bill with a single sentence included in the middle of a news release mentioning his action on various other bills. He included no explanation as to why he signed it.
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The governor also vetoed a pair of bills he said targeted imaginary problems pertaining to federal holidays and United Nations policies, but which he said could have been costly to local communities.
One of the vetoed bills would have banned public entities from restricting celebrations or discussions of federal holidays.
The other would have forbidden governments from enacting policies traceable to Agenda 21 — a nonbinding resolution adopted in 1992 by the United Nations that encouraged sustainable development.
“While the problems these bills ostensibly aim to fight are only imaginary, the headaches they could create for local governments would be very real and costly,” Nixon said in Monday’s release.
