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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   25455 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025

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Alabama Code § 32-6-13 states:

The Director of Public Safety, with the approval of the Governor, shall establish and promulgate reasonable rules and regulations not in conflict with the laws of this state concerning … the enforcement of the provisions of [Alabama Code Chapter 6, Article 1: Drivers’ Licenses] [which includes Alabama Code § 32-6-4, on issuing driver's licenses].

The Alabama supreme court has held time and time again, most recently in State of Alabama v. Catherine Taylor, et. al., that one consequence of Alabama Code § 1-3-1 is the complete efficacy and legitimacy of so-called “common law” name changes (name changes done neither by a court action nor by any specific statutory process) in the eyes of the State:

The order entered by the trial court permanently restrained the State from refusing to allow plaintiffs … from registering to vote “under the names by which they have chosen to be known and have used subsequent to this proceeding.” … We hold that the trial court did not err.

… “Where it is not done for a fraudulent purpose and in the absence of statutory restriction, one may lawfully change his name without resort to legal proceedings, and for all purposes the name thus assumed will constitute his legal name just as much as if he had borne it from birth.”

We are not aware of any statutory restriction which requires that married women not be permitted to register to vote, if otherwise qualified, under the names by which they have chosen to be known and have used; provided, of course, it is not done for a fraudulent purpose.

… in view of the fact that the common law regarding "names" has not been altered by the legislature as far as we know, we adopt the common law of England in resolving this dispute.

… While the State suggests that allowing married women to register in their maiden surnames will create confusion, we believe that the legitimate interests of the State in preventing fraud in the election process can be satisfied without undue cost or harm.

However, the Alabama DMV has this policy currently in force for changing the name printed on Alabama ID cards:

If you have changed your name, you must…present valid name change documents (e.g., marriage certificate, divorce decree, court order or legal name change document), along with proof that your name has been changed with the Social Security Administration.

Now, being required to not just “present valid name change documents”, but have a federal agency pre-approve them, seems to be a central case (I'd argue even more central than voter rolls that no-one even sees) of requiring a person to “resort to legal proceedings” to make “the name thus assumed…constitute his legal name…for [this] purpose”, which would make it a “rule [or] regulation…in conflict with the laws of this state” and thus an illegal requirement for the Director of Public Safety to impose on petitioners seeking to update their ID card to reflect a common law name change.

This is not just a procedural nitpick, but in practice actually a blocker for any person attempting the process, because even if you could somehow generate (and were willing to generate) a paper trail for your common law name change that'd pass ALEA/DMV muster as substantiating the change, the SSA will reject it anyway.

Before I go knocking on the door of the ACLU, or spending a million dollars on a private lawyer to sue the DMV to avoid spending $50 on a court-ordered name change: does this argument seem sound?

It does seem like a sound argument, but it'll probably take the ACLU or a million dollars and a private lawyer to convince them. Spending $50 on a court-ordered name change is probably the simplest way to proceed.

Spending $50 on a court-ordered name change is probably the simplest way to proceed.

Sadly, I already took this “coward's way out” cutting a check to the local probate court rather than raising the matter the hard way, and am now far too satisfied with my legal name to fuck with it any further; someone else with a similar impulse will need to tackle this.

(I wonder if we'll see the ACLU stepping up on this matter only after someone is actually refused a court order for name change... which they generally only do for sex offenders and other criminals whose “crimes involv[ed] moral turpitude”...)

Sadly, I already took this “coward's way out” cutting a check to the local probate court rather than raising the matter the hard way, and am now far too satisfied with my legal name to fuck with it any further; someone else with a similar impulse will need to tackle this.

Why is this the coward's way out? If it's more convenient or efficacious to do an extremely minor amount of paperwork and pay a trivial filing fee, that seems totally reasonable.

[ For real law nerds, the real question is why does Alabama use - as the delimiter for their legal clauses rather than . like everyone else. ]

Not challenging illegal government authority is a slippery slope. Presumably.

If nobody does anything about undue power it becomes normal, and eventually legal.

Presumably one doesn't challenge the illegal actions of the government unless they are both illegal and have some specific articulable harm to someone.

The harm here (if there is any) seems trivial enough not to

Incidentally, one could make the inverse of a slippery slope argument -- if you cry "fascist" at every government overreach no matter how minor, it detracts from the real battles. Save your powder and so forth.

I always wondered what was actually more effective, to ruthlessly attack even the most minor of transgressions or to keep around the potential of a killing blow.

Seems to me that the logistics of maintaining power require constant use and practice. But that goes both ways. Power will learn to contain what it is confronted with.

In France we are fond of violent riots, but that means any French regime has riot police, vastly limiting the utility of direct action as a political tactic.

But then again I see the US's 2a growing ever more theoretical a right to contest the government militarily precisely because that's not a button you want to press often.

Before covid there were several cases of armed protestors getting blue states to change their legislative plans in red-friendly ways- some firearms related and some not.

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