On a day when various immigration bills got a hearing in the General Assembly (they've been heard almost every day this week), including several dealing with whether the state should require those who get driver's licenses here to prove they're legal residents of the U.S., Gov. O'Malley again expressed hopes that a change at the federal level would save the day in Maryland and other states.

"There are a lot of problems attendant to Real ID," O'Malley told reporters yesterday, adding that Democratic governors had discussed problems with implementing the federal law at Democratic Governor's Association meetings in Washington. "It is a classic unfunded mandate. It has a huge cost that would have to be passed on to everyone who goes to renew their license. And there are so many problems in terms of safeguarding people's privacy, their identity. We adopted a unanimous resolution among the governors that said in essence if you can't come up with $4 billion it takes to implement this then you should go back to the drawing board. Unless they get serious about funding it's going to be very very difficult for a lot of states.

"We are committed to become compliant with Real ID by 2011 but unless the president and Congress start to invest the dollars that need to be invested so that states can get there, this isn't going to happen."