Mostly the 1st Amendment does not apply the same way to a government issued identification sequence (which is what a license number is) as it would to bumper sticker. The government does not need to let you pick you license at all. It does so for the added revenue at its own discretion. That discretion does have certain limits. They should not disallow this if they allow WHTYSUX or something similar. But they should be able to ban any and all negative messages and still allow positive messages. BLCKPRID and WHTPRID should fall in the same category as each other but not the same as others.
In this case if they allow BLCKPRID type messages, the 14 part should not be a problem. The 88CV is a little more problematic. It would be hard to argue that Heil Hitler is a positive message and not an implied threat, and unless this guy is over 150 years old then the confederate veteran seems to be also an implied threat.
OK, you’re the government. There are lots of reasons you might want to regulate somebody’s expression. Some reasons would have nothing to do with what was actually being said at all – you can’t have your rock concert on the sidewalk in this residential neighborhood in the middle of the night. Those restrictions are content-neutral.
Other restrictions do have something to do with the actual content of the speech (are not content-neutral). These could be still be for lots of reasons, but we’re generally a lot more suspicious of them no matter what. A content based restriction would be something like “No picketing on the sidewalk, unless it’s labor-related” or “No abortion demonstrations.” It doesn’t ban all speech, just speech that falls into a particular category based on the actual kinds of ideas being expressed.
Among the content-based reasons for making regulations, viewpoint discrimination is the kind that gets the most suspicion of all. This means that not only are you regulating based on the content of what’s being expressed, you’re also taking an additional step and regulating based on the opinion or the position being taken. “No anti-war protests,” or “no anti-abortion demonstrations” (as opposed to banning both pro-and anti-) for instance. Viewpoint-neutral means that the regulation is not engaging in this kind of discrimination.
Strictly speaking, it isn’t true that all government action must be content-neutral or viewpoint-neutral, but as shorthand that’s often the way it’s talked about because it is very very difficult to justify that kind of restriction, and the assumption is that if the regulation isn’t content-neutral, it’s probably unconstitutional.
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Again, I think there are (or should be) different standards between what the government can stop you from saying and what the government can refuse to say for you.
Does Virginia issue novelty license plates? Virginia Tech, Save the Whales, etc.?
If so, it’s probably already gone well beyond viewpoint neutrality. Florida, for example, has a “choose life” license plate, but no “keep your mitts off my uterus”, or whatever.
The plate was one issued to people who were part of a group of Confederate Veterans descendants (RTFA, people!). So the CV bit is actually the only bit that isn’t particularly controversial.
Oh yes. (“Choose Life” is indeed available, along with the Marines, the Freemasons, AFL-CIO, Penn State, Fox Hunting, Friends of Tibet, and the State Insect, among many others.)
Agreed, but I’ve always known that there are lots of things you can’t get away with on a personalized plate. The state I grew up in explicitly states:
Seems fair, I guess, since the plates are state-issued-- and it’s not like vanity plates are some kind of requirement. They’re just what they’re called: vanity. And while I can’t see the argument for “HAUNTED” intimidating other drivers, I can definitely see how “FUCK OFF” would. Or, say, a reference to a hate group’s screed. The government can’t always stop you from making yourself look like an asshole, but it’s not required to help you do so, either.
I don’t even really get how there’s a debate here.
Licenese numbers are basically state identifications. They are not free speech. The state doesn’t have to allow you to personalize plates at all, and it certainly does not have to use an identification sequence it doesn’t want to use. There is no free speech right to dictate what sort of identification code the government ahs to use for your vehicle. It is, at the end of the day, the state’s identification code, not the owner of the vehicle.
To the extent that any court has ruled on the matter, it has found that there is a free speech interest in the choice of license plate. Which makes intuitive sense when you think about the way vanity licenses work in practice. Clearly there’s an expressive component involved in the choice of a license plate.
Everyone keeps saying there’s no free speech involved, but that just isn’t the way it’s always worked.
I know civil rights has come a long way, but AFAIK white babies are still okey-dokey.
What if the license plate read “86-88”? In effect it would be anti-Hitler, but if the authorities didn’t ‘get’ it they would ignorantly say, “It has ‘88’ in it, we better reject it”. Who is going to be the Minister of Cool to decide these cases?
Like my mom with “BB” being rejected (they said it was ammo although clearly it was her initials) you just cannot write the restrictions to take everything into account. You’d be left with people making arbitrary decisions so they would have to say “88” = bad no matter what. I suppose there are probably state issues plates that by chance have “88” in them but with no other coded message I suppose that would fly.
Virginia once issued a vanity plate that read “GOVT SUX”, then revoked it after receiving complaints. The driver sued the state to get it back, and the court ruled in his favor. I don’t know whether the judge issued a detailed opinion.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Virginia offers more plate designs than any other state. I think one needs to show a likely customer base of a certain size to convince the state to make them, and since Virginia’s vanity plates are the cheapest in the nation ($10 extra), it’s probably easier to find enough likely fans.
The article outlines Virginia’s process for deciding whether to allow questionable vanity plates through, and honestly their process seems almost more exhaustive then I think the problem really deserves. Of course I’m sure they still come to the wrong decision occasionally, but it seems like they’ve put more thought into the process then I’d expect.
I mean, our legal system occasionally sends the wrong guy to the gas chambers too. So if someones initials get tagged as obscene when they’re really not meant to be and they have to choose a new license plate number, I think I can live with that.
On May 20th, people should protest this assault on liberty by putting 14CV88 as their Facebook status.
I also don’t see how a state issued identification number represents free speech. The guy can still plaster it on the back of his pickup truck next to the peeing Calvin (was it wrong to assume he drives a pickup?).
