The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles has been the subject of controversy in the past few months, and about a week ago more fuel was added to the fire.
The BMV is looking to appeal a ruling of the Indiana Supreme Court which recently reinstated Indiana’s personalized license plate program. The organization has been the subject of several lawsuits involving First Amendment freedoms and has been criticized for its lack of consistent methods when it came to accepting or rejecting personalized plate requests.
Perhaps the most common face of these lawsuits is Rodney Vawter, a Greenfield, Ind., police officer who applied for and received a personalized license plate that read “0INK” more than three years ago, only to have it revoked in March 2013.
“I found it to be humorous because I’m a police officer and have been called a pig multiple times, even by arrestees,” Vawter said.
He was issued the letter and number combination without any problem on a Fraternal Order of Police plate and paid his fees for the plate for three years. The revocation seemed out of the blue.
“To have a plate that is personalized and offered by the BMV is a way to express your freedom of speech,” Vawter said, and his plate didn’t fail the BMV’s test of misleading, vulgar or offensive speech.
“It only offends me, which I’m good with,” Vawter said. “If people don’t like the plate I chose, then they do not have to look at it.”
The complications with Vawter’s lawsuit, alongside an increasing awareness that the BMV had what Vawter calls “no rhyme or reason to what plates are approved or denied,” has led to a gap in the personalized license plate system.
Because of the lawsuits, the BMV stopped the personalized license plates program. The Indiana Supreme Court wants to re-enable citizens’ right to practice freedom of speech in public, including on their license plates, but it doesn’t seem as though the BMV is in agreement.
Vawter said he is aware the personalized plate program brings in a good sum of money for the BMV and that will be a key influential factor in the ultimate decision to ban or not ban the program.
A July 7 Indiana Public Media report cited sources in the BMV who said it would take a lot of work to reinstate the program and that until further notice, it will be ?suspended.
Vawter said he isn’t worried about the appeals.
“The BMV needs to fight their legal battle as far as they can,” he said. “They believe they are right and that I am wrong for having the plate.”
