Every Mayoral Candidate Endorses Municipal ID Card Idea — So What Is It?

Nashville’s mayoral candidates want to create what’s known as a municipal ID card. They like the idea so much that, at times, it sounds like they’re competing to be its biggest champion.

Immigrants who already know a lot about municipal IDs cheered several times when every single mayoral candidate backed the idea
at a recent forum.

So what is a municipal ID? In short, it’s a card that the city would create to help people access services. One card to go to the library, get on a bus, to use as an ID with the police, and even to open bank accounts. That’s how they work in a handful of other cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, Calif.

More: 
Center for Popular Democracy report on municipal IDs

But it’s who the card would help the most that’s controversial: undocumented immigrants, the homeless and ex-cons, who often struggle to identify themselves.

Jeremy Kane says he was the first candidate to support this idea — regardless of opposition. And he even came up with a name for it: The Music City Card.

“Even after someone came up to me and said, ‘You can do that, but I’ll be the first person to sue you,’ I’ve continued to say that we need to stand up for everyone in Nashville, if you’re a resident, to have a Music City Card,” Kane told the forum crowd.

Candidates Megan Barry and Charles Robert Bone also acknowledged possible resistance, but said a city ID card would be worth fighting for.

“I would also want to make sure that we work with the state — because the state sometimes has the option to come in and overturn things that we do here locally — so I would want to make sure that we have it and we can keep it,” Barry said.

“And as a lawyer,
“ 
Bone followed, 
“
I do think we have the legal right to do that, and I would proudly defend that myself as your mayor.”

The group favored the idea unanimously. Linda Eskind Rebrovick called it 
“
innovative.
“ 
David Fox said it would represent a 
“
Nashville way
“ 
that is kind to new Americans. Bill Freeman called the ID a low-cost life-changer for people who need it. 
And Howard Gentry made sure to say he would include the homeless and those coming out of incarceration in any such program.

National advocates say these ID cards are one way that cities can do something for immigrants even as other efforts stall on the federal level.