Censorship vs. free speech on specialized license plates in Texas
I have to side with the argument that "{o}nce a state decides to make extra cash by allowing groups to put messages on license plates ... it can’t reject those it doesn’t like without violating the free-speech rights the First Amendment protects."
The Bill of Rights doesn't exist for the people you like. It exists for the people you detest.
Censorship vs. free speech on specialized license plates in Texas
Courts & Law
By Robert Barnes March 23 at 8:51 PM
Swastikas on Texas license plates? Yes, the lawyer answered. Messages promoting jihad? Yes. “Make Pot Legal?” Yes.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy kept looking for an outer limit. “Your position is that if you prevail, a license plate can have a racial slur?” Kennedy asked the attorney for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which was at the Supreme Court on Monday because Texas wants to keep the group’s Confederate-flag logo off the state’s specialized license plates. ... “Yes,” replied Austin lawyer R. James George Jr. “I don’t think there’s any consistent decision otherwise.”
Once a state decides to make extra cash by allowing groups to put messages on license plates — creating a new kind of public forum for speech, George said — it can’t reject those it doesn’t like without violating the free-speech rights the First Amendment protects. ... The court spent an hour — with little success, it seemed — trying to find a balance.
....
A motorist can purchase a license plate endorsing Dr Pepper and Mighty Fine Burgers, an Austin-based hamburger joint. “There’s no clear, identifiable policy . . . that the state is articulating,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “I mean, they’re only doing this to get the money.”
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