U.S. Supreme Court considering free speech rights on personalized plates

CEDAR RAPIDS - If personalized license plates, like tattoos, show how we see ourselves or the world, Iowans have a great sense of humor. And dirty minds.

The Iowa Department of Transportation, which has been issuing personalized license plates since 1975, rejected 240 plate requests in the past five years and 2,882 since the mid-1990s because the messages didn't meet the agency's rules.

About one-quarter of plate combinations rejected since Jan. 1, 2010, were excluded for sexual content. 'WAYLONG,” 'SZMATRS” and 'SHAGME” were all banned in the last five years.

Hostility or insults also are forbidden, so 'PASURAS,” 'H8IAST8” and 'HRKYSUX” didn't make the cut. A couple requests in the past five years were blatantly racist.

Another bunch of rejected plates - including 'RXPUSHR,” 'HASH” and 'PIMPALA” - allude to illegal activity. And as Iowa drivers can't impersonate law enforcement or other state employees. '10DASH4,” 'DOT2GO” and 'AJINC1” were denied.

Some decisions are puzzling. What's wrong with 'GMAJEAN” or 'WAYIROL”?

'Sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder,” said Andrew Lewis, assistant director of the DOT's Office of Vehicle and Motor Carrier Services. 'We have a group of people who work on issuing the plates. If they have something that is on the line, they will consult with their peers.”

A state's right to prohibit certain messages on specialty license plates is now being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, which debated last month whether free speech laws allow Texas to ban use of the Confederate flag on specialty plates. Texas officials argue they should be able to ban offensive messages that could incite violence, while First Amendment advocates say the state should get rid of personalized plates if they don't allow all kinds of speech.

The Iowa DOT processed 17,177 paper applications for specialty and personalized license plates in fiscal 2014. At a minimum of $25 extra for each vanity plate, that's $440,000 in revenue for the state. Personalized plates are $5 more at each annual renewal.

The online application portal that opened last summer allows drivers to plug in their desired personalized plate to see whether it's available. The site doesn't say whether the plate has been banned or if another driver is already using it.

(For children of the 1980s, the website holds the same illicit joy as typing naughty words into your Speak & Spell.)

But Lewis's office must approve all personalized plate requests. Employees check the application, on which the driver lists his or her intended meaning. If the explanation doesn't match the word or phrase, employees will look for double entendre, foreign meanings or slang, Lewis said.

Websites such as urbandictionary.com help decipher the ever-changing lexicon.

'It makes for some pretty interesting discussions sometimes,” Lewis said. 'Conversations that wouldn't be acceptable in any other workplace have to be acceptable here sometimes.”

But the DOT doesn't catch everything. Sometimes inmates working for Iowa Prison Industries, which prints Iowa's license plates, see a questionable plate combination and alert the DOT. Other times, county treasurers, who accept paper applications, raise red flags.

'They may know a person has a term of hostility directed at a particular person,” Lewis said.

Drivers whose plate requests have been denied may appeal to the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, where an administrative law judge will decide.

The most recent hearing on a personalized plate was in September 2012, over the license plate 'XMYA55”, Lewis said. The judge initially allowed the plate, but the decision was overturned on appeal.

If you're in the market for a personalized plate, save yourself some heartache by checking out the DOT's restrictions:

' No punctuation marks are allowed.

' No denoting a government agency (that is, DOT )

' No display of characters that are sexual in connotation

' No characters suggesting profane, obscene or inflammatory words or phrases, or those contrary to public policy

' No characters or words defined in dictionaries as a term of vulgarity, contempt, prejudice, hostility, insult or racial or ethnic degradation

' No characters considered to be offensive

' No characters that conflict with the regular license numbering system

' Recognized as a swear word

' Reference to an illegal substance or criminal act

' Any foreign word falling in any of these categories

' No duplicate combination of characters

' No zeros