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Stealing Away Non-Game Car Tag Money

Our Position: oppose
Bill Number: HB1232
Sponsor: Rep. Jay Shaw
Legislative Session: 2006

Rep. Shaw has introduced HB 1232 to do away with all the money the non-game wildlife program gets from the sale of its license plates, which is about three-fourths of all the money this tiny, inoffensive program gets. The bill takes money raised by the sale of several different license plates which had been earmarked for various programs and puts it into the General Fund. 

Status

02/06/06 in House Committee on Motor Vehicles

Action Needed

Background

Rep. Shaw discovered that the money from the popular license plate depicting a bobwhite quail did not raise any money for the depicted birds.  Instead, the money from that tag went to fund the non-game wildlife program.  Rep. Shaw and his allies passed a new quail tag, and made the non-game people find another emblem to fund their program.  

Now Rep. Shaw has introduced HB 1232 to strip all the money from the non-game program license plate sales. Other similar funds are also taken away by the bill, but the non-game program is the largest of those targeted.  Rep. Shaw says he is seeking “accountability." Shaw has one point:  the license plate money cannot be legally dedicated to any specific program unless there has been a constitutional amendment making such a dedication lawful.  On that basis, his bill, HB 1232, has legal merit, in stopping an unlawful appropriation of state money.  But all the people who bought the tags thought the money was going to the Non-Game Program.  Shaw does not care about those people or their wishes.

Rep. Shaw assured a subcommittee of House Motor Vehicles on Feb. 16 that the legislature would fund the programs that were losing their license plate money, if they merited funding, but this license money belonged in the General Fund, from which all programs, except roads and bridges, are funded. 

The practice of “dedication” of state funds is prohibited by the State Constitution, and if someone felt strongly enough about this license plate money going to disabled athletes, buying Civil War battlefields, or bird sanctuaries, they could presumably sue and have the money stopped.  But no one cares about this violation.  In fact, thousands of Georgians have purchased license plates specifically in order to support the non-game wildlife program.