By Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, St. Paul Pioneer Press

ST. PAUL — Senate leaders think they’ve struck a deal to revive a defeated measure to bring Minnesota into compliance with federal Real ID standards.

Three weeks ago, the Republican-controlled Senate rejected a bill to make the state’s driver’s licenses compatible with federal requirements that will go into effect next year. All the Senate’s Democrats and five of the Senate’s Republicans voted against the measure. The final vote was 29-38.

One of the biggest issues for many Democrats was not about the federal driver’s license security standards but the tangentially related question of driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton would like the Real ID bill to grant him the rule-making authority to implement them but said he would sign a Real ID bill without that. The House Republican Real ID bill contains explicit language barring licenses for undocumented immigrants. The Senate’s language was in between the two, but Democrats still felt it went too far in preventing the future issuance of undocumented immigrant driver’s licenses.

But now, after a suggestion from Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, and Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, the Senate is planning to vote for a new bill.

“We are talking about taking out the rule-making altogether,” said Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, a Republican from near Nisswa.

Doing that would win enough Democratic votes, Bakk said, for it to pass the Senate.

The revised measure could come up for a full Senate vote as soon as next week. That would allow House and Senate negotiators to come up with a joint measure to approve and send to Dayton.

Even if the Senate manages to pass the new version of the bill, there still could be trouble ahead: Republicans in the House of Representatives might refuse to vote for any bill that doesn’t include a legal ban on licenses for undocumented immigrants.

“The House has to understand that the Senate can’t pass a bill with that in there,” Bakk said.

Gazelka acknowledged the House-Senate divide is a concern.

“That’s the art of politics,” Gazelka said. “In the end, I think pressure has been growing on all legislators to get something done.”

Rep. Dennis Smith, the chief sponsor of the House Real ID measure, said he is confident that the Legislature will be able to pass a Real ID bill this year. The Legislature will come up with a “creative solution that will address all the issues and it will be something all the Legislators can support,” the Maple Grove Republican said.

The federal Department of Homeland Security has said that next year it will stop accepting driver’s licenses that are not Real ID compliant as valid identification at airports and other federal checkpoints. If Minnesota doesn’t change its licenses by then, residents may need to bring other identification, like a passport or a state-issued enhanced driver’s license, for federal purposes.