Virginia General Assembly votes to scrap Robert E. Lee license plates

Virginia General Assembly votes to scrap Robert E. Lee license plates
Bill dealing with two Confederate plates now heads to Youngkin

BY: SARAH VOGELSONG - FEBRUARY 27, 2024 5:06 PM

Legislation that would end Virginia’s issuance of two license plates that honor Robert E. Lee as “The Virginia Gentleman” and spotlight the Sons of Confederate Veterans is headed to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk. … The bill is the second attempt by Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William, to get rid of the Robert E. Lee plate, which was approved virtually unanimously by the General Assembly in 2007 but has become increasingly unpalatable to Democrats eager to cut ties between the modern state and its Confederate past.

Last year, Mundon King’s legislation failed in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates. But since then, Democrats have won narrow control over both legislative chambers, and on Tuesday, the Senate voted 21-17 to forward the proposal to Youngkin. The Republican governor will now have to decide whether to allow it to become law.

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Del. Tim Griffin, R-Bedford, similarly argued in a House committee debate that the legislation constituted “viewpoint discrimination.” … “The reason that we have First Amendment protections of speech in general is so that we protect speech that not everybody likes,” he said. “There’s an abortion plate on there that I find disgusting personally, but I’m not going to move to remove it just because I don’t agree with it.”

But Mundon King noted the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled states have the right to regulate license plates because they represent government speech, not private speech. That case, Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, freed up Virginia to enforce a law prohibiting specialty Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates from displaying the Confederate battle flag.

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