(Via Twitter)

The mayor personally presented Virginia McLaurin with a temporary REAL ID. (Via Twitter)

Within days of a Washington Post column lamenting that Virginia McLaurin, better known as the 107-year-old woman who charmed the Obamas, didn’t have the proper documentation to get a REAL ID, the mayor announced new regulations designed to fix the issue for McLaurin and other seniors.

The Post reported on Saturday that McLaurin had long ago lost her government-issued photo identification. To get a non-drivers REAL ID (which conforms to more stringent federal regulations) from the DMV, she needs her South Carolina birth certificate. But to get her South Carolina birth certificate, she needs photo identification. And they won’t accept a temporary ID that D.C. issued McLaurin last month (she lost her original ID card years ago in a purse snatching).

“It’s sad to see my mother having to stand in lines, getting tired,” her son, Felipe Cardoso, told the Post. “She can’t understand how her picture could be in all those newspapers and all over the Internet, how so many people could recognize her on the street and want to take selfies with her, and she can’t even get a photo ID.”

But thanks to direct mayoral intervention, McLaurin doesn’t need to worry any more.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said today that new regulations will expand the list of documents the DMV can accept for seniors who are 70 or older, and they go into effect immediately. But although the announcement was made in the wake of the Post story, the mayor’s office says they have been working with the Department of Homeland Security on creating the exception process since last June.

“These common sense regulations will ensure that District seniors can get an ID if they lack the kind of documentation that may not have been around when they were born,” Bowser said in a statement.

The mayor, along with Deputy Mayor Kevin Donahue and DMV Director Lucinda Babers, delivered the news to McLaurin personally—along with a temporary ID she can use until a permanent REAL ID is delivered in the mail.

Filed Under: bowser, dmv, license, real id, seniors, virginia mclaurin,