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8th Circuit Says Missouri's Procedure For Approving Specialty Plates Is Invalid

By Howard M. Friedman

In Roach v. Stouffer, (8th Cir., March 26, 2009), the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held unconstitutional Missouri's statute that gives the legislative Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight broad authority to approve or reject applications for creating new specialty license plates. The statute permits a veto of proposed plates by small numbers of legislators. The Court found that the Joint Committee's unbridled discretion creates the potential for unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. The suit was brought by an organization whose request for a "Choose Life" license plate had been denied after objections from two state senators. In upholding an injunction ordering the state to issue the plates, the court joined three other Circuits in holding that messages on specialty plates are private speech, not governmental speech. The court reasoned:

The primary purpose of Missouri's specialty plate program is to allow private organizations to promote their messages and raise money and to allow private individuals to support those organizations and their messages.... With more than 200 specialty plates available to Missouri vehicle owners, a reasonable observer could not think that the State of Missouri communicates all of those messages.

In a release on the decision from Alliance Defense Fund (which represented plaintiffs) indicates that Missouri has already begun to sell the plates since the Court of Appeals had refused to stay the injunction previously issued by the district court. The Kansas City Star also reports on the decision.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on March 27, 2009 (boomark / email).