SB 1064 – Garcia

Thousands of new Texans have moved to our state to take advantage of our active business environment. The Texas Department of Public Safety has broad discretion to determine which forms of identification are acceptable when applying for a Texas Driver’s License. DPS has chosen to interpret the state’s prohibition on the freedom to marry to disallow the acceptance of any identity document that indicates a married name obtained via a marriage not recognized by the state of Texas. This means that many new Texans cannot receive accurate Texas driver’s license that reflect the name that is on their other identity documents such as insurance, social security card, passports and bank accounts. SB 1064 instructs the Department of Public Safety to discontinue this practice and accept valid ID that reflects legal married names, regardless of if the marriage is recognized by the state of Texas or not.