Feds remind states about law protecting military spouse job licenses

By Karen Jowers

In the face of “concerning trends,” the Justice Department last month wrote to state occupational licensing authorities, reminding them of their responsibilities under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to make it easier for spouses and service members to transfer occupational licenses when they move to another state. The SCRA provides for service members and their spouses to continue to use professional licenses or certificates in new states when they move because of military orders. It is an update of a 2023 law that allowed such license transfers.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents in a 2024 Defense Department survey of active duty spouses said they had to get a new professional license in such fields as nursing, teaching or realty, after their last PCS move.“Service members and their spouses report that they are deterred from applying for license portability because they are misdirected by frontline staff,” Dec. 22 letters to all the states from Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said. “We strongly encourage you to train your public-facing staff about the SCRA,” the letter said, describing some “concerning trends” found in their initial conversations with licensing authorities.

For example, too often, applicants are sent to a generic renewal or application portal that does not include an option for SCRA license portability, she wrote. “We have found that, even in cases where applicants ask explicitly about SCRA portability, they have been told that no such pathway exists,” the letter stated. The Justice Department has opened several investigations regarding license portability, according to a DOJ spokeswoman, and “continues to educate state licensing boards, resulting in favorable policy changes,” she told Military Times. The department can file suits under the law in federal district courts and weighed in on at least one such lawsuit in 2023, in support of a request by military spouse teacher Hannah Magee Portée for license portability. In that case, Justice called Texas’ refusal to recognize Portée’s Missouri and Ohio licenses actions a violation of the new SCRA provision. Portée won her case.

Parts of the law could cause a new problem

One military family advocate claims the rewritten law could result in exclusion from protection under the act for military spouses covered by interstate licensing compacts if they are moving to a noncompact state. These compacts are agreements among states to recognize each other’s occupational licenses. Under the rewritten law, troops or spouses with licenses previously valid in multiple states because of such an interstate compact are subject to the legal requirements of their new state and specifically are not eligible for SCRA portability, a change from the old interpretation of the law. Such compacts, applying in up to 42 states, are fully in force for four occupations.

However, Don Berry, a retired Air Force colonel, of the Arkansas chapter of the Military Officers Association of America said, under the rewritten law, for example the SCRA would not apply to a nurse moving to California with a license covered by a licensing compact because California is not among the 41 states that have adopted a nurse reciprocity compact.  “This is something somebody’s going to need to take a look at,” Berry, who has advocated for occupational license portability for military spouses for over a decade, said. “Congress will need to make a provision to cover multistate license holders who are relocating to a noncompact state.”  That said, some states’ laws and processes regarding license portability are more favorable to military spouses than the SCRA provision, Berry said.

The rewritten law also addresses other parts of the law, including flexibility for the requirement to provide military orders to the state licensing agency. It allows a letter or any written communication from the service member’s commanding officer, indicating a change in the service member’s duty status, to satisfy the requirement for proof of military orders. “Because the issuance of official military orders can be delayed, a notice from a commanding officer provides a military family with the head start needed to accomplish the myriad tasks that accompany a PCS — from moving to pursuing license portability,” Dhillon’s letter states.

Other updates included:

• The licensing authority can issue a temporary license if it cannot issue a permanent license within 30 days of receiving the application. 
• The licensing authority may conduct a background check on the applicant before recognizing a previous license as valid, or before issuing a temporary license.
• There is no longer any requirement for the applicant to have actively used the license in the two years before the move.

Law licenses

In their rewrite of the license portability provisions of the SCRA, Congress added protections for law licenses, which had previously been excluded under the earlier version of the law. In a separate letter to state bar and court systems, Dhillon said DOJ recognizes that this is a new requirement, and said officials are already working with one state bar to ensure that it has an SCRA-compliant process for license portability applicants. “Please keep in mind that demanding anything more from an SCRA applicant than what is required by federal law is illegal,” she wrote. “For example, the law does not allow a state bar to request transcripts, bar exam scores, or [Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination] scores from SCRA applicants.”