Newly formed nonprofits couldn’t get new specialty plates, under bill headed to gov’s desk

When SB 1243a first passed the Senate on Feb. 3, it would have limited future specialty license plates to those benefiting government purposes. The bill was twice amended in the House, and today the Senate passed the amended version and sent it to the governor’s desk. “It’s not nearly as good of a bill as it used to be, but it still has some value,” Senate Transportation Chairman Jim Hammond, R-Coeur d’Alene, told the Senate, “in that those clubs who collect money through a specialty license plate, whether they are previous clubs or new clubs, all of those organizations have to submit an accounting annually to the Idaho Transportation Department as to how those funds have been expended. In terms of limiting specialty license plates … that has been stripped out. So it’s not nearly as good as it used to be, but it’s better than nothing.”

The Senate passed the amended bill with no debate. Unremarked on was a clause that requires any non-profit agency that applies for a new specialty plate to “submit evidence to the department that the application has 501(c)(3) federal income tax status that has been in existence for at least two (2) years.”

Earlier this session, former Congressman Bill Sali introduced legislation for a new “In God We Trust” specialty license plate whose proceeds would go to a new heritage education nonprofit he’d just formed. Sali said his new organization had applied for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status from the IRS, but hadn’t yet received it; that approval can take many months.

SB 1243a doesn’t have an emergency clause, so it takes effect July 1 and wouldn’t affect Sali’s pending bill; but his bill never got a hearing in a House committee, rendering it likely dead for the session. You can read my full story here at spokesman.com.