Civil Rights
Block on Trump's Asylum Ban Upheld by Supreme Court
Sometimes it feels good to let your personality shine through for everyone else on the road to see.
And at other times, a stick in the mud working for the government wants to tell you what you can and can't do. Just suck it up and accept your 710 MZT license plate like every other miserable commuter out there.
But a federal judge in California wants everyone to lighten up a bit, as he struck down California Department of Motor Vehicle's regulations of banning personalized license plates that are "offensive to good taste and decency" on First Amendment grounds.
The lawsuit was filed by five individuals who had their personalized license plate requests rejected. It's not entirely clear why these requests were rejected, other than that when the government tries to regulate taste, it can get awfully subjective.
The plates in question are:
"Vague bans on offensive speech allow bureaucrats to inject their subjective preferences and undermine the rule of law," said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Wen Fa, who represented the plaintiffs pro bono.
In throwing out the standards, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California Jon Tigar, an appointee of Barack Obama, said the state appeared to apply the standards arbitrarily when rejecting some 30,000 personalized plate requests per year.
In a ruling sure to make teenagers everywhere giggle if they would just take the time to read it, Tigar cited how the DMV restricts the use of the number 69, except when it doesn't, referencing the state's lusty approval of a "69 LUV N" plate. Other plates the state let through include "DUK N GO" and "FN RIDE."
So the next time you're cruising on the Pacific Coast Highway and you come across OGWOOLF, give them a honk for standing up for the Constitution.