‘Choose Life’ License Plates Are Next First Amendment Battleground

Does Illinois' refusal to issue “Choose Life” license plates violate the First Amendment rights of car owners who would like to display their anti-abortion views?

That’s a decision the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to make, the New York Times reports. The high court has turned down at least four cert petitions asking for review of “Choose Life” license plate decisions, but many legal scholars say differing court decisions mean it is time for the justices to decide the issue.

“The next great First Amendment battleground, it turns out, is on the back of your car,” the Times story asserts.

Complicating the issue is the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, which allowed a Utah city to decline to display a monument to a religious group’s Seven Aphorisms. The decision said courts should not use forum analysis, used to evaluate requests by private speakers for access to a public forum, to evaluate cases involving permanent monuments in public places. A permanent monument is best viewed as a form of government speech that is not subject to the free speech clause, the opinion said.

Illinois maintains its license plates represent government speech and the free speech clause doesn’t apply, the Times story says. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago, ruling before the Summum decision, said the Illinois license plates represent private speech. But it said Illinois could exclude the “Choose Life” plates in any event because the government had “excluded the entire subject of abortion from is specialty plate program.”

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis has issued a contrary ruling that requires the state of Missouri to issue “Choose Life” plates, the story says. The federal appeals court said last month that the Summum ruling doesn’t affect its decision that the specialty plates are private speech protected by the free speech clause.