Local
DMV order lets judges keep home-state licenses
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
January 28, 2009
The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles has issued an emergency order exempting federal judges and their spouses from a rule that requires drivers to surrender their home state licenses when they register their cars in the District.
The order, which is scheduled to take effect next month, gives the exemption to “members of the judicial branch of the federal government” and is signed by DMV Director Lucinda M. Babers.
“This emergency action is based on the immediate need to permit members of the federal judiciary who hold non-District driver’s licenses at the time they register a motor vehicle in the District to be able to continue to operate motor vehicles in carrying out their official duties,” the order states.
The order was signed Jan. 9 but posted on the D.C. government Web site late last week. Babers’ order states that she wants to make the emergency rule final within 30 days of its posting.
D.C. law requires new residents to trade in their out-of-state licenses within 30 days of moving to the District.
It’s unclear what the rationale is behind the new order, or why it was classified as an emergency. D.C. has long had “reciprocity” laws that allow members of Congress as well as students and military personnel to keep their out-of-state licenses. This is because such people are considered “temporary residents.”
However, federal judges are usually lifetime appointees. And a judge’s spouse ordinarily has no part in a judge’s “official duties.”
According to the Web sites of the D.C. District and appellate courts, all of the city’s federal judges have been on the bench for at least two years — well beyond the deadline for trading in their old licenses.
Babers told The Examiner that the emergency order sprang from “a situation” recently.
“We needed to take care of something on an emergency basis,” she said. “I can’t really say anything else at the moment.”
She denied, however, that the emergency order came to assuage an angry judge.
“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to an angry judge,” she said.
The order, which is scheduled to take effect next month, gives the exemption to “members of the judicial branch of the federal government” and is signed by DMV Director Lucinda M. Babers.
“This emergency action is based on the immediate need to permit members of the federal judiciary who hold non-District driver’s licenses at the time they register a motor vehicle in the District to be able to continue to operate motor vehicles in carrying out their official duties,” the order states.
The order was signed Jan. 9 but posted on the D.C. government Web site late last week. Babers’ order states that she wants to make the emergency rule final within 30 days of its posting.
D.C. law requires new residents to trade in their out-of-state licenses within 30 days of moving to the District.
It’s unclear what the rationale is behind the new order, or why it was classified as an emergency. D.C. has long had “reciprocity” laws that allow members of Congress as well as students and military personnel to keep their out-of-state licenses. This is because such people are considered “temporary residents.”
However, federal judges are usually lifetime appointees. And a judge’s spouse ordinarily has no part in a judge’s “official duties.”
According to the Web sites of the D.C. District and appellate courts, all of the city’s federal judges have been on the bench for at least two years — well beyond the deadline for trading in their old licenses.
Babers told The Examiner that the emergency order sprang from “a situation” recently.
“We needed to take care of something on an emergency basis,” she said. “I can’t really say anything else at the moment.”
She denied, however, that the emergency order came to assuage an angry judge.
“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to an angry judge,” she said.
