Tennessee anti-abortion tags ready this fall
Tennessee’s anti-abortion “Choose Life” license plates could hit the streets within three months now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal.
Production of the plates can begin once the state attorney general gives the go-ahead, and minor design changes are made to the specialty plate, Department of Safety spokeswoman Julie Oaks said Tuesday.
The Department is contacting the 1,265 car owners who pre-ordered the plate ? 1,000 orders are necessary for a specialty plate to be issued ? to make sure they still want the plate and still live in Tennessee.
Law enforcement officials had taken issue with the visibility of the original plate design, so the department will work with the tags’ advocates to improve the design, she said.
There is a $35 surcharge for specialty plates, and a $70 fee if motorists want personalized tags. Half the proceeds for the “Choose Life” plates are slated for anti-abortion groups, while 40 percent is dedicated to the arts and 10 percent for the state highway fund.
About a dozen states offer tags to show car owners’ opposition to abortion.
Opponents like the ACLU contend there should be a free-speech right to broadcast other views on their tags, but proposals to offer car owners an abortion rights tag failed in Tennessee.
Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the state ACLU, acknowledged that her group’s legal options have been exhausted, but vowed to continue “fighting viewpoint discrimination in Tennessee.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Bryson was the main Senate sponsor of a 2003 measure to create the “Choose Life” specialty license plates.
The license plate bill took on a life of its own after a federal court ruled it unconstitutional ? only to have an appeals court later throw out that decision earlier this year.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided this week not to reconsider the car tag laws in Tennessee and Louisiana.
“I’m thrilled that the Supreme Court has agreed that the ‘Choose Life’ plate is constitutional and go forward despite the governor’s opposition to the bill,” Bryson said through a spokesman.
Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat who is running for re-election this fall, allowed the “Choose Life” plate and other specialty tags to become law without his signature. The governor has called for a review of the entire specialty plate program, fearing the state was “venturing onto a slippery slope” by putting political messages onto plates.