Senator Escamilla’s Personal License Plate Amendments Bill Passes Senate

For Immediate Release

February 19, 2020

SALT LAKE CITY – On Tuesday, SB 97 – Personal License Plate Amendments sponsored by Senator Luz Escamilla (D-Salt Lake City), passed the Senate. SB 97 allows the Motor Vehicle Division to refuse to issue a license plate if they determine that the combination of letters and numbers disparages a group of people based on certain protected classes. The protected classes include race, color, national origin, religion, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, citizenship status, or physical or mental disability. In addition to addressing offensive license plate requests, this bill allows for personalized license plates to include letters, numbers, or combination of both referring to an official state symbol (i.e. state flower, state tree, etc.).

This bill comes from a January Administrative Rules Committee meeting in which the rule for personal license plate requests was discussed. The Committee felt legislation was needed in order to create further clarification for the Tax Commission to be able to put better rules in place for their staff regarding personalized license plate requests.

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