$%&@!! Maine Rethinks Decision to Stop Vetting Vanity Plates From Fort Kent to Kittery, there are now all matter of obscenities including straight-up f-bombs and references to anatomy and sex acts adorning license plates
Published May 5, 2021 •
Updated on May 6, 2021 at 6:28 pm
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Based on crude license plate messages, one may be forgiven for assuming Maine doesn’t give two flips about obscenities.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wants to change that. Download our mobile app for iOS or Android to get alerts for local breaking news and weather.
Bellows, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, testified Tuesday in support of several bills to rein in the wild west that ensued when the state ended the vetting process for license plates in 2015.
$%&@!! Maine rethinks decision to stop vetting vanity plates
by David Sharp, The Associated Press
Posted May 4, 2021 3:09 pm EDT
Last Updated May 4, 2021 at 3:14 pm EDT
PORTLAND, Maine Based on crude license plate messages, one may be forgiven for assuming Maine doesn’t give two flips about obscenities.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wants to change that.
Bellows, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, testified Tuesday in support of several bills to rein in the wild west that ensued when the state ended the vetting process for license plates in 2015.
From Fort Kent to Kittery, there are now all matter of obscenities including straight-up f-bombs and references to anatomy and sex acts adorning license plates issued for cars and trucks.
From Fort Kent to Kittery, there are now all matter of obscenities including straight-up f-bombs and references to anatomy and sex acts adorning license plates issued for cars and trucks.
“The First Amendment protects your right to have any bumper sticker you want, but it doesn’t force the state to issue you a registration plate that subjects every child in your neighborhood to a message the government wouldn’t allow them to see in a movie theater,” she told the Legislature’s Transportation Committee.
Bills before the committee would reestablish a review process, allow the secretary of state to reject vulgar license plates and allow the recall of offensive license plates that already have been issued.
Donât start writing Goldenâs political obituary just yet
Just six months from the last congressional election, attention is turning to the next one in November 2022. Republicans think they smell blood in the water around Democratic Congressman Jared Golden. That could be premature.
Maineâs 2nd Congressional District is mostly rural, covering about 80 percent of the vast and less populated parts of Maine. Golden has won the 2nd Congressional District twice now. A second win is usually enough to secure a lock on the seat but Golden knows full well that this is not a certainty.
His first race saw him up against two-term incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin along with two write-in candidates. None of the four got a majority of the vote and for the first time ever ranked choice voting decided the outcome of a congressional race. In the first incumbent upset since 1916, Golden took Poliquinâs seat 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent.
Baker s Seatbelt Reform Proposal Knocked Over Profiling Concerns Some civil rights and transportation advocates caution, however, that the route to safer roads proposed by the governor is too punitive and could exacerbate racial profiling of drivers
Published April 29, 2021
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker pitched his new omnibus road safety legislation as a way to improve the state s almost-worst-in-the-nation seatbelt use and cut down on traffic deaths that have not abated during a stretch of pandemic-era decreased travel.
Some civil rights and transportation advocates caution, however, that the route to safer roads Baker proposed is too punitive and could exacerbate racial profiling of drivers a fear that Baker acknowledged.