The Knoxville News Sentinel has an article on a proposal in the state legislature intended to “depoliticize” the license plate issue.
You have to read 3/4 of the article before you discover what the proposal is, and even then it’s not very clear:
The bill, in essence, would take the Legislature out of the decision-making process and allow issuance of a specialty plate for any organization meeting minimal qualifications, provided it can sign up 1,000 people in advance who pledge to purchase the new plates at $35 each.
The minimum criteria, [Rep. Jamie] Hagood said, would specify that the plate’s content “not be obscene,” that it not closely resemble another plate already issued and that the design “could not interfere with law enforcement.”
This is an improvement over the Legislature having total control of license plate speech; presumably both sides will be able to speak on an issue.
Still, I wonder why we need this fuss. It seems the non-profits have become so dependent on state-assisted fund raising that they are now calling the shots. It wasn’t so long ago that groups managed to get by without specialty plates.