Description
The controversial design was created to honor Confederate veterans on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.
The proposal is sponsored by Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson on behalf of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that has won approval of the plates in nine other states, including Georgia, Maryland and Tennessee. It has filed and won lawsuits in states where its requests were denied.
According to the group, proceeds from the sale of the plates would be used to place markers on Confederate soldiers' graves and to build monuments honoring Confederate heroes. Profits would be shared with the Texas General Land Office to preserve artifacts, supporters said.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans sought state approval for a license plate design that featured the group’s logo: a Confederate battle flag framed on all four sides by the words “Sons of Confederate Veterans 1896.” It also has a faint image of the Confederate flag in the background.
In 2011, after several votes, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles rejected the application because it found “a significant portion of the public associate the Confederate flag with organizations advocating expressions of hate directed toward people or groups that is demeaning to those people or groups.”
A federal district court upheld that decision, but on July 14, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision that Texas had violated the Sons of Confederate Veterans group’s First Amendment rights. “By rejecting the plate because it was offensive,” the majority wrote, “the board discriminated against Texas SCV’s view that the Confederate flag is a symbol of sacrifice, independence, and Southern heritage.”
Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, 576 U.S. 200 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that license plates are government speech and are consequently more easily regulated/subjected to content restrictions than private speech under the First Amendment.
The Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sought to have a specialty license plate issued in the state of Texas with an image of the Confederate Battle Flag. The request was denied prompting the group to sue, claiming that denying a specialty plate was a First Amendment violation.