Please Tread on Me: New Idaho license plate shows need for regulatory scrutiny

Lawmakers say they want less red tape, but pass bills that guarantee the opposite

Last legislative session, lawmakers passed and Gov. Brad Little signed a bill to create a new specialty license plate. I don’t pay much attention to license plate legislation, but this one is worthy of note.

The new law created a “Don’t Tread on Me” plate which, the statute says, “include(s) the Gadsden flag on a bright yellow background with the image of a rattlesnake and the words ‘don’t tread on me.’” You know the flag. Since the Revolutionary War, it has been used as a symbol of the bearer’s pursuit of liberty in the battle against government tyranny.

I’ve zero inclination to get this new license plate. First, I don’t see how paying extra money to the government for a license plate screams “freedom from tyranny.” If anything, freedom ordinarily means being able to pay less to the government, not more. Ideally for the government to not tread on me, I wouldn’t have to submit to putting license plates on my vehicles at all, let alone write a bigger check for the honor of having a car.

Second, it’s bad enough the government is keeping tabs of my comings and goings using license plate scanners, but now, the bright yellow plates basically points out to law enforcement the mindset of the vehicle’s owners. Probably a scofflaw of some kind at the wheel! It’s only a matter of time before a police officer’s body cam captures officers chortling, “better watch yourself! They’ve got one of those license plates.”

Third, money from the sale of these plates goes to pay for a firearm safety program in the government schools, which, it should be pointed out, competes with firearm safety programs in the private sector. Maybe government shouldn’t tread on the businesses that educate youngsters about firearm safety.

And forth, and the reason for this writing today, is that the bill requires the state Board of Education to “adopt rules to implement and sustain” the firearms safety program. The statute says, “Such rules shall provide for moneys in the firearms safety grant fund to be awarded in the form of grants to school districts that apply for the use of such funds to establish or maintain firearms safety education courses pursuant to” law.

For the last several years, lawmakers and Gov. Little have been bragging about how much they’ve cut back on state rules and regulations. Good for them. I’m somewhat openly skeptical about the magnitude of red tape cutting that state officials allege have occurred, but I concede that at least the trend is good, if temporarily so.

However, there’s only so much agencies can do on their own to eliminate regulations. Lawmakers pass bills that leave details to agencies to fill out. That’s done through regulation. And that’s why some bills contain the words “the agency shall promulgate rules.” This is a requirement that agencies write regulations, the same you’ve heard lawmakers say they’re cutting. The Gadsden flag legislation, as noted above, requires the state Board of Education to make more red tape.

Lawmakers often go this route because it’s easier and it avoids squabbles with their colleagues over details. Rather than say something like, “each applicant school district shall receive grants totaling $500 per student,” they leave it to unelected government bureaucrats to figure out. This is one of the reasons why the number of Idaho regulations will always go up and/or persist.

It would be nice if lawmakers would catch themselves in the act, much the way they (try) to do with bills that have in impact on state spending. Joint Rule 18 requires disclosure of projected costs of legislation. Yet there is no similar requirement when a bill is expected call for more regulation. Maybe it’s time to fix that.

I remember one year a legislator had a bill that the Idaho Freedom Foundation rated negatively because it left key details to the collective imaginations of the agency personnel. The lawmaker protested that adding specific information would make the bill too long. Our rewrite required only one more sentence,, to which the lawmaker agreed. The bill rating went to neutral, and the bill passed overwhelmingly.

There’s a reason why rules and regulations and the scourge of a free society. They carry the force of law, and they give unelected bureaucrats the authority that ordinarily belongs to our elected representatives. Any bill that guarantees new regulations deserves additional scrutiny, even if that bill comes cloaked in a pretty yellow flag with a really awesome message.