BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: ab 2321
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: gomez
VERSION: 4/24/14
Analysis by: Carrie Cornwell FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 26, 2014
SUBJECT:
Special-interest license plates: Office of Emergency Services
DESCRIPTION:
This bill requires the Office of Emergency Services to apply to
the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to establish a
special-interest license plate that promotes awareness of
domestic violence and sexual assault.
ANALYSIS:
Any state agency, including the Department of Health Care
Services, may sponsor a special-interest license plate pursuant
to AB 84 (Leslie), Chapter 454, Statutes of 2006. Under
AB 84, the DMV may issue new special-interest license plates
only on behalf of state agencies and only provided that for each
state agency:
The license plate has "a design or contains a message that
publicizes or promotes a state agency, or the official policy,
mission, or work of a state agency." The design shall also be
confined to the left of and below the numerical series (i.e.,
no full plate designs allowed).
The state agency submits 7,500 applications and accompanying
fees to DMV for the license plate. The state agency has 12
months to collect these applications and fees, but it can
extend that to a maximum of 24 months if it notifies and
offers to refund fees to those who applied during the first 12
months. Once a plate is issued, DMV stops issuing that plate
for the agency if the number of plates drops below 7,500.
In addition to the usual registration and license fees, DMV
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charges the following additional fees for specialized license
plates: $50 for the initial issuance, $40 for annual renewal,
and $15 to transfer to another vehicle. DMV deducts its
administrative costs from the revenues generated. The net
revenues derived from a specialized license plate are then
available upon appropriation for the sponsoring state agency to
expend exclusively on projects and programs that promote the
state agency's official policy, mission, or work.
A sponsoring state agency may not spend more that 25 percent of
its license plate funds for administrative, marketing, and
promotional costs associated with the plate, and it must submit
an annual accounting report to DMV.
This bill :
1.Requires the Office of Emergency Services to apply to DMV
pursuant to AB 84 to sponsor a domestic violence and sexual
assault awareness license plate program.
2.Directs the revenues derived from this license plate, after
paying DMV's costs, to the California Domestic Violence
Prevention Fund, which the bill creates to fund the Family
Violence Prevention Program.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . The author introduced this bill to compel the Office
of Emergency Services (OES) to sponsor a special-interest
license plate in order to promote awareness of domestic
violence and sexual assault and to provide additional funding
for the OES-administered Family Violence Prevention Program.
This program provides financial and technical assistance to
local domestic and family violence centers that are
implementing family violence programs around the state.
The author notes that domestic violence and sexual assault are
crimes that millions of women, men, and children are victims
of across the state of California. The California Coalition
Against Sexual Assault reports that on average 24 people per
minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by
an intimate partner in the United States. The author
introduced this bill to help to provide proper attention and
funding to sexual violence, a severe public health problem.
2.History of special-interest license plates . Historically, the
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Vehicle Code required DMV to issue, upon legislative
authorization, a special-interest license plate bearing a
distinctive design or decal of a sponsoring organization to
any vehicle owner that pays specified fees, provided that the
sponsoring organization met certain conditions. These
conditions included that the sponsor of a special-interest
license plate had to be a nonprofit organization and had to
collect 7,500 applications and fees for a special license
plate in order to pay DMV's costs of creating a new plate,
which are approximately $375,000 or 7,500 applications times
the $50 fee.
In 2004, a federal court decision, Women's Resource Network v.
Gourley, E.D. Cal 2004, F.Supp.2d, 2004 U.S. Dist.,
invalidated these provisions of the Vehicle Code. In the
Gourley decision, the court declared California's
special-interest license plate statutes unconstitutional
because they violated the First Amendment right to freedom of
speech. The court specifically objected to the Legislature
"picking and choosing" special license plates that private
organizations propose, in essence promoting the message of
some organizations while denying this right to others. The
court did allow the 10 special-interest license plates
existing at the time of its decision to remain in use and
available to new applicants, as they are today.
In response to the court decision, AB 84 (Leslie), Chapter
454, Statutes of 2006, established the current specialized
license plate program to provide a forum for government speech
that promotes California's state policies. AB 84 excludes
private organizations from seeking specialized license plates
as a forum for private speech and thus addresses the court's
objection. Newly created plates and the revenue they generate
must publicize or promote a state agency or the official
policy, mission, or work of a state agency.
3.Senate Resolution 28 moratorium on license plate types .
Earlier this year, this committee authored and the Senate
enacted SR 28 (Transportation and Housing Committee), which
declares a moratorium on legislation to increase the number of
license plate types that DMV may issue until the Legislature
receives the results of a study and set of recommendations
from DMV, in consultation with law enforcement, on license
plate designs appropriate for traffic safety and effective law
enforcement in today's environment. This bill does not appear
to be subject to that moratorium, as it does not create a new
license plate type, but simply orders the Office of Emergency
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Services to sponsor a special-interest license plate as it
could of its own volition under existing law.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 76-0
Appr: 17-0
Trans: 15-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Monday,June 23, 2014.)
SUPPORT: Partnership to End Domestic Violence
OPPOSED: None received.