Two senators block pro-life license plate

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Two senators who support abortion rights blocked an attempt Tuesday to create a "Choose Life" license plate.

A proponent of the specialty plates said the rejection amounted to an infringement of free speech and vowed to challenge the decision in court, if necessary.

The rejection was the first under a new administrative procedure that was intended to spare legislators from having to pass a bill each time a group wants to emblazon its cause on a state license plate.

The 2004 law allows not-for-profit groups that pay $5,000 and line up the first 200 potential purchasers to apply for specialty plates through the Department of Revenue. The law allows an application to be blocked by any member of the Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight, or by any two senators or five House members who sign a petition.

Democratic Sens. Joan Bray and Rita Heard Days, both of St. Louis, signed a letter objecting to the "Choose Life" license plate.

That barred the transportation committee -- of which they both are members -- from voting on the plate Tuesday, when it approved four other plates with messages about autism, cattle, caves and U.S. military troops.

The "Choose Life" license plate is part of a national movement that has succeeded in some states but been blocked in others and entangled in legal battles elsewhere.

Bray said she blocked the license plate because of its message.

"I don't think that anybody ever intended license plates to be political bumper stickers," Bray said.

Kevin Roach, an economics student at Washington University in St. Louis, is president and chairman of Choose Life of Missouri, which he formed to promote the license plate. Roach said the legislative committee "was supposed to be a rubber stamp," with had no power to deny a proposed license plate that had met the procedural requirements.

"The state cannot and should not engage in viewpoint-based discrimination," Roach said.

The 2004 law allows denials to be appealed to the Legislature's transportation oversight committee, but it doesn't lay out specific appeals procedures. Committee chairman Rep. Neal St. Onge, R-Ellisville, said he believes the procedures would be the same as for the first round, meaning Bray and Days could again block the proposal.

Roach said his group was prepared to appeal and, if denied again, file a lawsuit contesting the rejection.