BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1323
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB 1323 (Lieu)
As Amended August 22, 2014
2/3 vote. Urgency
SENATE VOTE : Vote not relevant
TRANSPORTATION 14-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Lowenthal, Linder, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bigelow, |
| |Achadjian, Bloom, Bonta, | |Bocanegra, Bradford, Ian |
| |Buchanan, Daly, Frazier, | |Calderon, Campos, |
| |Gatto, Holden, Nazarian, | |Donnelly, Eggman, Gomez, |
| |Patterson, Quirk-Silva, | |Holden, Jones, Linder, |
| |Waldron | |Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Wagner, |
| | | |Weber |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Requires that any revenue in the Specialized License
Plate Fund generated from a specialized license plate issued
under the Pet Lover's License Plate Program is to be
appropriated to the Veterinary Medical Board (VMB) as of the
operative date of this bill. Includes an urgency provision.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Depending on the number of licenses plates sold, the
continuous appropriation could provide expenditure authority
to the VMB exceeding $150,000 in any fiscal year without
legislative budgetary oversight.
2)One-time transfer to the Pet Lover's Specialized License Plate
Fund of $120,000 in funds collected to date for the Pet
Lover's program.
COMMENTS : Prior to 2007, any new specialized license plate
required specific legislative authorization. That practice was
held to be unconstitutional by the federal courts in that the
Legislature approved some of the plates and rejected others,
while using no standardized or objective criteria for those
decisions. In response to the court decision, AB 84 (Leslie),
SB 1323
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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.
Specialized license plates now created and the revenue they
generate must publicize or promote a state agency, or the
official policy, mission, or work of a state agency. A state
agency must first submit an initial application to DMV
requesting sponsorship of a specialized license plate. The
process then provides the sponsoring state agency 12 months to
obtain the required 7,500 paid applications and must be received
by the sponsoring state agency prior to notifying DMV. The
7,500 application threshold was previously put into statute for
specialized license plates and was arrived at in an attempt to
assure that DMV's startup costs would be fully covered by the
portion of the registration fee surcharge that is directed to
DMV and to avoid a proliferation of different types of plates,
which can be troublesome from a law enforcement perspective.
Furthermore, fees collected from the specialized license plate
programs are first used to cover DMV program administrative
costs with the remaining additional funds being deposited into
the Specialized License Plate Fund and subject to appropriation
by the Legislature.
DMV currently administers 12 specialized license plate programs,
including the Pet Lover's specialized license plate program. AB
610 (Solorio), Chapter 9, Statutes of 2012, provided VMB an
additional 12-month period to meet the 7,500 application
threshold as required by existing law. VMB obtained the
necessary applications over the additional 12 months and began
issuing Pet Lover's specialized license plates in September of
2013. As of May 31, 2014, DMV has issued 8,070 Pet Lover's
specialized license plates and generated $94,844.
This bill requires any revenue generated and currently deposited
in the Specialized License Plate Fund from specialized license
plates issued under the Pet Lover's License Plate Program to be
appropriated to VMB upon the enactment of this bill. The funds
are to be used by VMB to provide grant funds to providers of no
and low-cost animal sterilization services. Currently a timing
issue exists between when DMV started collecting fees for the
Pet Lover's specialized license plate program and when DMV has
SB 1323
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the authority to allocate the funds to VMB. Due to this timing
issue, VMB would receive program funds no earlier than July
2015. The author notes the provisions in this bill are
necessary to ensure that the funds are provided to VMB in a
timely manner.
Analysis Prepared by : Manny Leon / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093
FN: 0005336