In order for you a specialty license plate supporting pickleball, our state sport, you’re going to have to attend. Similar for plates with the theme of Smokey Bear, Nautical Northwest or Mount St. Helens. Not one of the specialty plate payments proposed this yr survived the most recent legislative calendar. None survived final yr, both.
A latest Home Transportation Committee listening to in Olympia revealed a glimpse of the way forward for specialty license plates and the way we’d change it.
I watched all three periods about these plates so that you don’t should. Take into account yourselves fortunate. Crucial and entertaining listening to is under. (The enjoyable begins at concerning the 34-minute mark.)
On Feb. 5, the Home condensed six specialty license plate payments into one — House Bill 2489. The proposed specialty plates depict Smokey Bear; LeMay, America’s Automobile Museum; Mount St. Helens; Working Forests; Hold Washington Evergreen; and Nautical Northwest.
Smokey Bear even confirmed up in individual (or bear) on the Capitol for photographs. Proceeds from the gross sales and renewals of the Smokey Bear plate would fund wildfire prevention and training efforts. Let me inform you, the company desires that plate.
Home legislative sponsors appeared proud to current their plates. I used to be engaged and moved by the primary listening to on Jan. 17 and laughed together with the legislators when the sponsors have been requested trivia questions on their plates. It made me be ok with the pickleball state sport plate, though it didn’t survive.
Nonetheless, there may be resistance by lawmakers to spend worthwhile time on this. Within the Jan. 17 Home listening to, Rep. Andrew Barkis had a scorching mic second when he was heard saying, “We should always all have our personal personalised plates issued by the state.” That led to loud laughter all through the chamber and a name to order from Rep. Jake Fey, the transportation chair.
Rep. Liz Berry adopted up with a query: “Are you able to please clarify why we have now to vote on license plates and why [Department of Licensing] can’t simply approve these … it’s clearly some statute, may we modify that? We spend quite a lot of time on these items. Would we be allowed to alter that indirectly?”
The reply was, “That may be a selection you possibly can make.”
Extra laughter.
Then Fey stated, “I wager, Rep. Berry, that you simply’re not alone on this.”
Rep. Ed Orcutt, who spoke on behalf of the Mount St. Helens plate, stated that is the sixth yr he’s sponsored the plate, and he’d be “more than pleased” to see such plates mechanically dealt with by one other company.
One can conclude there isn’t a longer any urge for food within the state Legislature to listen to and go license plate payments. Some members assume it’s a waste of their time. I agree. I’d slightly stand within the Division of Licensing line from hell than anticipate years for a legislative miracle permitting my specialty license plate invoice to go.
It’s not honest to ask the general public — individuals filled with a way of responsibility to their trigger — to satisfy the complicated and costly necessities of the DOL specialty plate procedure, solely to have them watch an detached Legislature fumble their invoice, a sufferer of the vagaries of the political course of.
I hope the pickleball plate has an opportunity to convey some cheer to the Senate and Home chambers sooner or later.
If not, I hope that I will likely be ready in a protracted DOL line in 2026 to get the pickleball specialty plate accepted.
