Well, to give an update:
I hadn't gotten any response from my reps office since I sent them an email, so I called them back about a week after I sent it to make sure they got it. It would seem as though I happened to send my email on my rep's moving day and they were trying to catch back up with everything. I was told that they had sent an email on my behalf though. So I called the DPS to find out what was going on with their end of things and, though all this time I had been told all of my background checks were complete, I was told they were still waiting on the "field investigations". Well, I kinda lost my cool at this point....
So I asked for a supervisor and after being told none were in the office today
I was finally transferred to one that WAS in the office magically. She tells me that they are waiting on my local checks to be completed and she was going to investigate why this wasn't done and acknowledged that mine was taking longer than most. However, she did state that there are currently over a 1000 applications to process a week and that she had 30 "research applications" in her lap. Once she started throwing numbers out, and seeming truly exasperated, I kinda felt bad and just told her to get back to me when she had time. So I'm supposed to get a call sometime this week with a final word.
*sigh*
I won't hold my breath, but if our reps hear from enough of us maybe something will be done to improve the service we receive from those fine folks at the DPS!
or replaced 
.
