Great news! The State Senate has passed Senate Bill 310, also known as Steve’s Law. The action now moves to the State Assembly, and we are hopeful that its companion bill, Assembly Bill 306, will soon be approved there as well, then signed into law by Governor Evers. But we need your help to get it to the finish line!
Named after the late Steve Johnson, an avid outdoorsman and former Council board member from La Crosse, Steve’s Law would fix a problem with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) online Go Wild system, where you can buy fishing and hunting licenses, register boats and off-road vehicles, and sign up for safety education courses. The system currently requires a driver’s license to establish state residency. It does not accept state ID cards, which can be used for almost all other official identification purposes. This unfair setup denies the 31% of state residents who are nondrivers equal access to state resources.
AB 306 and SB 310 address this equity issue by stating that people can use any ID issued by the Department of Transportation, including a state ID card, to establish residency for all approvals issued by the DNR. A driver’s license would no longer be the only acceptable form of identification.
AB 306 is scheduled for a public hearing in the Assembly Committee on Transportation on Tuesday, October 24. We encourage you to submit written testimony to the Committee expressing your support for the bill and why it’s important to remove this unnecessary obstacle for people with vision loss (and other nondrivers) seeking to participate fully in Wisconsin’s amazing outdoor recreation opportunities. We also urge you to contact your Assembly representative and ask them to vote in favor of the bill when it comes before the full Assembly. You can find out who your Assembly representative is by entering your address on the State Legislature website at legis.wisconsin.gov.
To submit written testimony to the Committee, email it to Committee Clerk Jesse Johnson at Jesse.Johnson@legis.wisconsin.gov by Tuesday, October 24. Make sure to reference AB 306 and indicate that you are urging them to approve the bill and move it forward for consideration by the full Assembly. You can also register your support over the phone by calling the Legislative Hotline at 800-362-9472 and asking that the Committee Chair receive information about your support for AB 306.
If you are able, please let us know if you have submitted testimony. Thank you for being an advocate for ID equity in Wisconsin!
