A coalition of 21 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed two lawsuits in the Eastern District of Virginia to prevent the Trump administration from obtaining commercial driver’s license records, escalating a dispute over federal access to state-held data on truck drivers.
The legal challenge centers on whether the federal government can compel states to share sensitive driver information, with millions of records at stake and federal funding on the line.
The lawsuits come just over a year after a fatal crash on the Florida Turnpike involving an illegal immigrant truck driver, which prompted the Trump Department of Transportation to intensify enforcement of commercial driver licensing rules. The Department has threatened to withhold approximately $10 million in funding from states that do not comply with its request for driver records.
Lawsuits Target Federal Data Demands
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is leading the legal effort, joined by attorneys general from Virginia, California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. Pennsylvania’s governor’s office also joined, despite the state’s Republican attorney general.
The lawsuits name the Department of Transportation, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and, in one case, the Department of Homeland Security as defendants. The complaints allege that the agencies are violating federal privacy laws and the Administrative Procedure Act by seeking to create or access a federal database of personally identifiable information without proper legal authority.
Raoul argued the federal government is misusing its power:
"Yet again, the Trump administration has threatened to hold federal funding hostage in order to obtain personally identifiable information of millions of Americans for improper purposes."
— Kwame Raoul, Illinois Attorney General
The complaints state that commercial driver’s license records include names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, license numbers, and the issuing state, and are maintained by states after verifying each applicant’s identity, medical fitness, immigration status, and driving history.
Federal Enforcement Push and State Resistance
The Trump administration has cited public safety concerns, pointing to the Florida crash as evidence of the risks posed by unqualified or unauthorized drivers. Since President Trump signed an executive order to "restore integrity to the trucking industry" in April 2025, the Department of Transportation says it has revoked 30,000 illegally issued commercial driver’s licenses in noncompliant states and removed 10,000 fraudulent or unqualified training providers from the federal registry.
The Department of Transportation argues that the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which manages the commercial driver’s license database, operates under a federal contract and should comply with federal data requests. The agencies set an August 17 deadline for the association to provide the records; when the association said it could not meet the deadline, the Department of Homeland Security issued a subpoena for the data.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy dismissed the lawsuits as politically motivated, stating:
"These radical state AGs want to make it harder for my Department to enforce the rules of the road and easier for dangerous illegal immigrant truck drivers to operate a big rig. They may not care about keeping you and your family safe, but President [Donald] Trump and I do. We will fight this lawsuit tooth and nail to prevent more senseless crashes by unqualified drivers."
— Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary
Privacy, Precedent, and Next Steps
State officials argue that the federal demand for data exceeds the original purpose of the commercial driver’s license database, which was created four decades ago to help states share information and keep unsafe drivers off the road. Raoul warned that federal access could jeopardize the system’s integrity and Americans’ privacy.
The Department of Transportation maintains that every administration since 1988 has had access to the database, challenging the states’ claims of federal overreach. The lawsuits will test the limits of federal authority over state-held data and the balance between public safety and privacy protections.
The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators has not commented publicly on the lawsuits or the subpoena for records.
