Officials Ask High Court to Stay Out of Case

The Clinton administration is asking the Supreme Court to back out of a big-bucks battle over states selling information--such as people’s addresses and telephone numbers--from driver’s licenses.

In a brief made public by the court Thursday, Solicitor General Seth Waxman said the anticipated constitutional showdown “has something of an academic tenor at the present time” because of a law President Clinton signed earlier this month.

The justices in May granted a Justice Department appeal and agreed to review a South Carolina dispute over a federal law that closes state motor vehicle records to the public. A federal appeals court had ruled in that case that Congress usurped states’ authority when it enacted the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

The law, which took effect in most states in 1997, bars states and their employees from releasing personal information from motor vehicle records. States routinely have sold such information to businesses and political candidates, earning millions of dollars in revenue each year.

When the law was enacted in response to the 1989 killing of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a stalker, 34 states were making motor vehicle records public in some form.

At issue in the South Carolina case, scheduled to be argued before the nation’s highest court Nov. 10, is whether Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce gives it the authority to demand states keep motor vehicles records private.

But Waxman said the new law, which essentially imposes the same restrictions on states, is not tied to Congress’ power over commerce. Instead, it is based on Congress’ far-broader power over spending -- the restrictions apply to any state receiving federal transportation funds.

As written, the law’s restrictions linked to federal spending are to take effect 90 days after the Supreme Court’s final disposition of the South Carolina case.

Waxman said that means even if the court were to rule that the 1994 law exceeded Congress’ authority, South Carolina and all other states would have to comply “with the very same restrictions on disclosure as a condition to its receipt of federal transportation funds.”

Waxman said the court “may wish . . . to consider” setting aside the federal appeals court’s ruling and sending the South Carolina case back for more study in light of the new law.

The case is Reno vs. Condon, 98-1464.