Loopholes help specialty plates

Save the Manatee. Protect the Panther.

Stop Heart Disease. Share the Road.

It's hard to argue with most of the messages appearing on Florida's specialty license plates. But some lawmakers have a beef about the sheer number of those messages.

To date, Florida offers 114 specialty tags. Despite being in the middle of a three-year moratorium on new ones, lawmakers this spring proposed a dozen new plates, from "Let's Go Surfing" to the overtly religious "Trinity," depicting Jesus on the cross.

Only one new plate, supporting autism programs, actually passed. But proposals for new ones are piling up again for 2010:

•Endless Summer, for the Surfing's Evolution & Preservation Corporation

•Fraternal Order of Police for the state Fraternal Order of Police Law Enforcement Memorial

•St. John's River, for The St. Johns River Alliance, Inc.

•Catch Me, Release Me, for the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation

Last year's and this year's proposals are the result of loopholes in the moratorium passed in 2008, exempting plates that were already in application process. Seven more plate designs fit through that loophole and could be approved next year.

Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, proposed the moratorium after law enforcement officers complained that the increasing number of designs "makes it difficult for them to identify a car, because witnesses have a hard time identifying whether it's a Florida tag or not."

Tax collectors also complained that it's hard to manage and properly display so many.

Dockery said she agreed to the loopholes in deference to the late Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, a close friend, mentor and former Senate president. That year, King was advocating for the St. John's River plate.

Now Dockery is weighing a proposal to require applicants for new plate designs to pre-sell plates prior to final approval.

Current law requires survey results indicating only that at least 30,000 vehicle owners intend to buy a proposed plate. Often, those results have turned out to be inaccurate.

Florida drivers pay $20 to $25 extra per year to display specialty plates, which account for nearly 9 percent of total tags in use.

According to a Senate committee report, that generated more than $37 million last fiscal year for the plates' sponsors, who had to pay an initial application fee of $60,000 to cover costs of production.

As of October, the state had sold 220,727 specialty plates in 2009 and renewed 1.14 million. Total sold and renewed in 2008: 1.63 million.

"Once you have more than one, it doesn't make any difference to me," said Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, who chairs the House's transportation budget committee. "They make a lot of money for the different charities they support."

Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, called the glut of designs "ridiculous."

"It becomes a permanent bumper sticker," said Crist, who chairs the Senate's criminal justice budget committee. "That's fine and great, but the purpose of a plate is identification and recognition of vehicles to enforce the law."

Crist proposed in the spring to issue a standard plate with room for up to two specialty stickers bearing designs in support of the driver's chosen charity or charities.

Crist argued that would raise even more money for charity, since each plate could represent up to two causes. But groups that already had or wanted their own plates were unconvinced, and his proposal went nowhere.

"What's wrong with having a lot of choices?" asked Rep. Mary Brandenburg, D-West Palm Beach, sponsor of a proposed Fraternal Order of Police plate.

There is already a Florida Police Benevolent Association tag. The growing number of plates supporting law enforcement groups and causes, Crist said, has made police more reticent about objecting to too many plates.

A different sort of organization is suing the Legislature for not approving the plate it has proposed.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a national group with a Florida chapter, sued in January, arguing that lawmakers violated their constitutional right to free speech after refusing to consider its request for a Confederate flag plate.

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

HOT PLATES

Top seller: University of Florida plate - 100,666 of them sold or renewed

Runner-up: Helping Sea Turtles Survive - 65,617

Lowest : Clearwater Christian College - 64