Like bikes? There’s a plate for that.
Lighthouses? Yeah, there’s a plate for that, too.
Serve in the military? Support Gonzaga University? Love your pet? Like our parks? Survive Pearl Harbor?
The Legislature has, over time, created a special license plate that you can buy (or in some instances, such as Pearl Harbor, get for free) to show your affection or affiliation. You may not be able to wear your love on your sleeve, but you are free to wear it on your bumper. And because most of these specialty plates raise more money than it costs to make them, they raise funds for charities including child abuse prevention, music education and even construction of Safeco Field.
The charity plates, 15 of them, raise about $1.8 million a year. At last count, there were 41 different “special-design” license plates available so many that lawmakers tried to set up an approval process in 2003 and then imposed a moratorium on them in 2005. The moratorium doesn’t expire until the summer of 2013, but nearly every year legislators exempt a new plate or two.
Too political?
This year the state Senate has found two causes so vital as to deserve exemptions. Senate Bill 5990 would create a plate honoring the rhododendron. OK, that one’s obvious. I mean, it’s the state flower and the money raised would help preserve rhododendrons. Oh yeah, and it happens to be sponsored by the chairwoman of the committee that oversees special license plates, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (who, by the way, said in 2005 when there were just 25 specialty plates: “We never intended there to be so many different flavors.”)