The Georgia General Assembly has taken time out from its very busy schedule to pass a bill of great importance that will surely promote job growth, lower crime, help to fix the housing crisis, and probably a number of other social ills. A Georgia resident can now get a sticker for his license plate that says, “In God We Trust”, and almost as good, the state is going to waive the one dollar fee because somehow to charge for it is disrespectful to God. If you get one of these stickers you can cover up the identification of your county, unless you have a vanity plate that doesn’t display the name of the county.

Presumably there is a public safety reason for the requirement that license tags show the county in which the car is registered. Or maybe it’s for tax purposes. Either way, since it is some sort of offense to remove the county identification, there must be some legitimate purpose for it. Why vanity plates are exempted I don’t know. Perhaps a reader can add some light to this. But I was wondering if a Georgia car owner can also cover up the county identification with another sticker? How about the original national motto, “E Pluribus Unum?” Would this garner him a ticket for some infraction related to defacing a license plate? If so, why? Is the state favoring one message over another? Is there a First Amendment issue here, especially if the state can’t provide a compelling reason for allowing one slogan over another?

What is there about our legislators that they go to such great lengths to prove how religious they are? It almost compares with the old days of southern politicians trying to “out seg” their opponents. Meanwhile, the same legislators who have bestowed this gift on us refuse to admit that they are bought and sold for sports and concert tickets, high priced dinners, golf outings, and so much more. Any serious lobbyist and gift reform is dead on arrival once again in the General Assembly. But they do have their priorities.