Title: Higgins v. DMV

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

FILED: JULY 3, 2003
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
In the Matter of
the Denial 
of the Application for 
the Custom Plates
"WINE" "INVINO" "VINO" 
of
MICHAEL PAUL HIGGINS,
Petitioner on Review,
	v.
DRIVER AND MOTOR VEHICLE
SERVICES BRANCH (DMV),
Respondent on Review.
(60486; CA A96871; SC S48149)
	On review from the Court of Appeals.*
	Argued and submitted March 14, 2002.
	Edmund J. Spinney, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
of Oregon, Springfield, argued the cause and filed the briefs for
petitioner on review.
	Mary H. Williams, Assistant Solicitor General, Salem, argued
the cause and filed the brief for respondent on review.  With her
on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Michael D.
Reynolds, Solicitor General.
	Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs,
and Balmer, Justices.**
	DURHAM, J.
	The decision of the Court of Appeals and the order of the
Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Branch are affirmed.
	*Judicial Review from Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Branch. 170 Or App 542, 13 P3d 531 (2000).
	**Leeson, J., resigned January 31, 2003, and did not
participate in the decision of this case.  De Muniz, J., did not
participate in the consideration or decision of this case. 
	DURHAM, J.
	Petitioner seeks review of a final order issued by an
administrative law judge on behalf of the Oregon Department of
Transportation, Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Branch (DMV). (1) 
The order affirmed the decision of DMV to deny issuance of
customized vehicle registration plates to petitioner because the
configuration of characters that he requested, "WINE," "INVINO,"
and "VINO," violated an administrative rule prohibiting
references to alcoholic beverages on such plates.  The order
rejected petitioner's contention that the rule violated his right
to freedom of expression under Article I, section 8, of the
Oregon Constitution and the First Amendment to the United States
Constitution.  On judicial review, a divided en banc Court of
Appeals affirmed the order.  Higgins v. DMV, 170 Or App 542, 13
P3d 531 (2000).  Petitioner sought review.  For the following
reasons, we affirm.
	Proper resolution of this dispute turns on a clear
understanding of the nature of vehicle registration plates and,
especially, customized registration plates.  Oregon law
extensively regulates the ownership, registration, and operation
of vehicles in the state.  ORS 803.300 makes it an offense for a
vehicle owner in Oregon to fail to register the vehicle.  When
the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) registers a
vehicle, ODOT must issue to the owner, among other things, two
registration plates, ORS 803.525, unless state law authorizes
issuance of a single plate.  ORS 803.530 requires that the
registration plates remain with the vehicle, unless transferred
to another vehicle or replaced with ODOT's approval.  ORS
803.535(1) provides that registration plates shall be in the
size, form, and arrangement selected by, and made of materials
determined by, ODOT, including:
		"(d) Except as otherwise authorized under ORS
805.200, all plates shall contain the distinctive
number or characters assigned to the vehicle and the
word 'Oregon.'"
	Oregon statutes authorize ODOT to issue several types
of registration plates that exhibit special indicia of
registration.  See, e.g., ORS 805.210 (special interest
vehicles); ORS 805.220 (vehicles of certain elected officials);
ORS 805.230 (amateur radio operators' vehicles).  As pertinent to
this case, ORS 805.240 authorizes issuance of "customized"
registration plates:
		"The Department of Transportation is authorized to
issue customized registration plates upon the request
of vehicle owners.  Such registration plates shall meet
the requirements for registration plates described in
ORS 803.535.  The fee for issuance of the customized
plates is as provided under ORS 805.250."
The registration plates that petitioner sought in this proceeding
were customized registration plates within the terms of ORS
805.240.
	Under ORS 805.240, customized registration plates must
meet the requirements of ORS 803.535, quoted in part above, which
provides that the statutory design requirements in ORS
803.535(1)(d) apply "[e]xcept as otherwise authorized under ORS
805.200 * * *."  ORS 805.200 grants to ODOT the authority by rule
to design several kinds of registration plates, including
customized registration plates.  ORS 805.200(1) provides, in
part:
	"The Department of Transportation by rule:
	"* * * * *
		"(b) May design plates, stickers, plate and
sticker combinations or other devices or indicia for
distinguishing vehicles registered under specific
provisions of the Oregon Vehicle Code other than ORS
805.040 or 805.205 [providing for registration of
certain vehicles not involved in this proceeding]. 
Plates designed under this paragraph shall comply with
the requirements of ORS 803.535.  The fees for plates
or indicia described in this paragraph are provided
under ORS 805.250."
	Once ODOT issues a registration plate, ORS 803.550
makes it an offense to alter or obscure a registration plate. 
ORS 803.540 makes it a violation to operate a vehicle in the
state without displaying the assigned registration plates in
plain view.
	The statutory scheme reviewed above demonstrates that
registration plates are part of Oregon's detailed scheme for
maintaining a state-controlled system for the registration of
almost all motor vehicles in the state.  The characters that the
state assigns to a vehicle's registration plates facilitate the
prompt identification of the vehicle for law enforcement
purposes.  However, the statutes discussed above do not disclose
the details of a vehicle owner's role in, and the regulatory
standards that govern, the selection of characters for customized
registration plates.  DMV has addressed those matters in
administrative rules, some of which the agency has amended during
the course of this proceeding.  We turn now to a discussion of
those rules and the facts of this case to which they pertain.
	In 1996, petitioner submitted customized registration
plate applications to DMV in which he requested plates displaying
the following characters:  "INVINO," "VINO," and "WINE."  DMV
denied the applications on the ground that the extant
administrative rule, former OAR 735-46-010(7) (1996), required
DMV to deny "custom plate choices that are * * * [d]rug-related
words * * *." (2)  DMV determined that petitioner's requests were
"alcohol/drug related."
	DMV afforded petitioner a hearing on the denial and,
after the hearing, issued a final order denying the applications. 
Petitioner sought judicial review of the final order.  DMV
withdrew the final order under ORS 183.482(6), (3) amended its
administrative rule, which we quote below, regarding customized
registration plates, and reissued its final order denying the
applications under the amended rule. (4)  Petitioner filed an
amended petition for judicial review of the reissued final order.
	DMV's amended administrative rule, OAR 735-046-0010,
provides, in part:
		"(1) Persons who want to obtain custom plates
shall apply to DMV for approval and assignment of the
plate choice.
		"* * * * *
		"(7) DMV shall not approve a custom plate choice,
including plate choices that would do so by means of
foreign or slang words or phrases, by use of phonetic,
numeric or reverse spelling, or by being viewed in
mirror image, that:
		"* * * * *
		"(b) Refers to alcoholic beverages, or controlled
substances or paraphernalia used in the consumption
thereof by combinations of letters, numbers or both."
	DMV's administrative rules clarify the standards and
procedures that govern issuance of customized registration
plates.  OAR 735-046-0010 permits a vehicle owner, on payment of
a designated fee, to apply for DMV approval and assignment of
registration plates that display letters and numbers that the
owner chooses, rather than the letters and numbers that DMV's
conventional registration plate system would produce.  By
displaying customized registration plates, vehicle owners can
transform what they otherwise might consider to be an
uninteresting mix of random letters and numbers into a message
that they wish to display on their vehicles, such as "TRIGGR,"
"BTRMLK," or "10ENE1."
	Customized registration plates perform the same vehicle
identification function and are subject to the same prohibitions
and requirements regarding display, removal, and alteration that
apply to conventional registration plates.  DMV's administrative
rules permit vehicle owners to use their creativity in selecting
the characters for customized registration plates.  However, the
rules restrict the range of permissible choices of license plate
characters that DMV will incorporate on a customized registration
plate and do so on the basis of the content of the message that
the characters requested by the vehicle owner would state or
imply.  Those content-based restrictions in DMV's rules lie at
the heart of the parties' dispute here.
	On review, petitioner acknowledges that his requests
for customized registration plates violated OAR 735-046-0010(7)(b) because each group of characters in his requests
referred in some manner to an alcoholic beverage.  He contends,
however, that the administrative rule is invalid because it
limits free speech on the basis of the content of that speech and
does not confine its prohibition to some well-established
historical exception to the state free speech guarantee.  See
State v. Robertson, 293 Or 402, 412, 649 P2d 569 (1982) (stating
analysis under Oregon Constitution, Article I, section 8,
including historical exception doctrine).  Article I, section 8,
of the Oregon Constitution provides:  
	"[n]o law shall be passed restraining the free
expression of opinion, or restricting the right to
speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever;
but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of
this right."
Petitioner also asserts that the speech conveyed by a customized
registration plate is that of the vehicle owner, not the state.
	The Court of Appeals divided largely over the question
whether the message displayed on a customized registration plate
constitutes the speech of the vehicle owner or that of the state. 
The majority opinion sustained DMV's rule on the theory that a
customized registration plate conveys communication by the state,
not the vehicle owner.  Higgins, 170 Or App at 547.  Two judges
concurred on the theory that, although speech by both the state
or the vehicle owner occurs at three different stages of the
application process, the restraint involved here applied to the
stage that involved speech only by the DMV.  Id. at 554-55
(Edmonds, J., concurring).  Another judge concurred on the theory
that, although the license plate characters constituted speech by
petitioner, the incompatibility exception to Oregon's free speech
doctrine justified DMV's restrictions on petitioner's speech. 
Id. at 561-63 (Wollheim, J., concurring) (discussing
incompatibility doctrine).  Two judges dissented, expressing the
view that Oregon law should permit the state to limit the message
that vehicle owners might desire to display on customized
registration plates, but that the analysis adopted in this
court's decision in Robertson precluded that result.  Id. at 563
(Landau, J., dissenting).
	We begin by observing that state law requires DMV to
create registration plates, with a distinctive configuration of
numerals and letters, to facilitate vehicle identification for
law enforcement purposes.  The numerals, letters, stickers, and
other insignia on a registration plate communicate information
about the registration status of the assigned vehicle.  DMV
creates that communication device by manufacturing and assigning
a registration plate to vehicle owners.  Vehicle owners in turn
communicate their vehicles' registration status to the world by
affixing the registration plate to the exterior of their vehicle
as required by state law.
	The latter point demonstrates that, contrary to the
state's argument, the information that a vehicle registration
plate conveys is not "government speech," as this court has
employed that term in describing legal problems arising from the
government's publicity about, and promotion of, its policies. 
See Burt v. Blumenauer, 299 Or 55, 66, 699 P2d 168 (1985)
(discussing "the concerns that stretch out to many forms of so
called government speech").  The function of a registration
plate, at bottom, is vehicle identification, not government
advocacy.  Government controls completely the manufacture and
assignment of registration plates, but the label "government
speech" in our view fails to describe accurately the vehicle
owner's conduct in displaying the registration plate that the
government assigns.
	Neither can we agree with petitioner that the act of
displaying a registration plate on his vehicle constitutes self-expression within the ambit of Article I, section 8.  Rather,
that conduct constitutes the compelled public disclosure of the
registration status of the vehicle.  If petitioner chooses to
drive his vehicle on the state's highways, then he must display
the registration plate that DMV assigns to his vehicle and no
other plate.  The government's complete control over the
manufacture, assignment, and requirements for display of vehicle
registration plates undermines petitioner's claim that displaying
a registration plate amounts to his own free speech.
	In that regard, petitioner's free speech claim is
distinguishable from those analyzed in much of this court's case
law regarding Article I, section 8.  A few examples will suffice. 
Robertson held that a statute that created and defined the crime
of "coercion" reached privileged expression, that no historical
exception for the restriction existed, and that the court could
not construe the statute so as to avoid its overbreadth. 
Robertson, 293 Or at 436-37.
	In City of Eugene v. Miller, 318 Or 480, 871 P2d 454
(1994), the court reversed the defendant's conviction under a
city ordinance for selling joke books on a city sidewalk.  The
court, relying on earlier authority, noted that selling is a form
of communicative behavior that includes speech, id. at 485; that
the joke books were expressive material, id. at 486; and that the
ordinance in question treated vendors of expressive material more
restrictively than vendors of other merchandise, id. at 491.
	In City of Hillsboro v. Purcell, 306 Or 547, 761 P2d
510 (1988), this court held unconstitutional a city ordinance
that forbade any person to enter private property or to call at
residences, without an invitation, for the purpose of selling
goods.  The court noted that government may not ban speech
through either criminal laws or civil prohibitions.  Id. at 553-54.  The court, citing City of Portland v. Tidyman, 306 Or 174,
182, 759 P2d 242 (1988), did observe that "even free speech
activities 'are not immune from regulations imposed for reasons
other than the substance of their particular message,' Tidyman  
* * *.  In either case, laws must proscribe harm rather than
expression itself."  Purcell, 306 Or at 554.  The court
determined that "[s]elling is a form of communicative behavior
that includes speech and may involve goods that are protected
expression."  Id. at 555.  The court then held that the ordinance
was overbroad because it prohibited "all solicitation for any
purpose at any time" and that the court could not confine the
ordinance through interpretation to "constitutional confines
intended by lawmakers[.]"  Id. at 556.
	Those cases, and others that we have not cited, address
the constitutionality of legal restraints on a person's own
expressive activity, not, as here, the legally compelled display
of a message that government creates for a regulatory purpose
unrelated to the suppression of speech.  Petitioner seeks,
however, to circumvent that distinction by emphasizing that DMV's
rules for customized registration plates permit him, for a fee,
to compose and request a plate configuration of his own choosing. 
According to petitioner, those rules permit a type of free speech
and, consequently, DMV cannot enforce its restraints on the
substance of that free speech without offending Article I,
section 8.
	We disagree with petitioner, because his premise is
incorrect.  As we discussed earlier, the compelled display, for
regulatory purposes, of a registration plate bearing a
government-created identification message is not an act of
constitutionally protected speech, writing, or printing by the
vehicle owner in any historical or modern sense.  DMV's
customized registration plate rules permitted petitioner to
participate, within defined limitations, in the selection of the
numerals and letters that would appear on the registration plate
for which he applied.  But the limitations in DMV's rule confined
the possible combinations of characters from which petitioner
could select.  The state did not open the process to any
combination of letters and numbers that a vehicle owner might
request.  The state, not petitioner, retained control of the
parameters within which petitioner could request characters for
his customized registration plates.
	In our view, DMV's rules allowing a vehicle owner's
limited participation in the selection of characters for a
customized registration plate do not alter the essential
character of a registration plate.  It remains a government-controlled device that carries a government-approved
identification message that vehicle owners must display on their
vehicle for regulatory purposes unrelated to the suppression of
speech.  For that reason, there is no basis under this court's
case law to examine, as in Miller and Tidyman, whether DMV's
rules are permissible time, place, and manner regulations of free
speech, whether the rules fail, as in Purcell, to proscribe harm
rather than expression itself, or whether, as discussed in
Robertson, a well-established historical exception applies to
rules governing the display of vehicle registration plates.
	DMV's rule identified the parameters within which DMV
was prepared to manufacture customized registration plates
pursuant to applications that vehicle owners submitted.  It is
obvious from the rule that DMV was unwilling to manufacture a
customized registration plate, as a part of its process for
vehicle registration, if the requested characters conveyed a
message about alcohol (or drug use, profanity, sexual terms, and
the like).  We find nothing in the text or history of Article I,
section 8, that entitles petitioner to compel DMV to manufacture
a customized registration plate that conveys a message that falls
outside the scope of the messages that DMV was willing to use in
its vehicle regulatory scheme. (5)
	Petitioner also asserts that DMV's substantive
restriction on customized registration plate messages violates
the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which
provides:
		"Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances."
The Court of Appeals rejected petitioner's argument.  It
concluded that, under current federal case law, a registration
plate is a nonpublic forum and that DMV's rules are permissible
restraints on speech in that context because they "are reasonable
in light of the purposes of the forum and are viewpoint neutral." 
Higgins, 170 Or App at 553 (citing Arkansas Ed. Television Comm'n
v. Forbes, 523 US 666, 118 S Ct 1633, 140 L Ed 2d 875 (1998)). 
We conclude that the First Amendment analysis that the Court of
Appeals applied was correct.  Accordingly, we reject petitioner's
First Amendment challenge to DMV's rule.
	The decision of the Court of Appeals and the order of
the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Branch are affirmed.




1. 	The order on review describes DMV, in accordance with
then-current administrative rules, as the Driver and Motor
Vehicle Services Branch.  The current name of the agency is
Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division.  OAR 735-010-0008(11).

2. 	OAR 735-046-0000(1) provides that "'[c]ustom plates'
means customized registration plates as authorized by ORS
805.240."

3. 	ORS 183.482(6) provides:
		"At any time subsequent to the filing of the
petition for review and prior to the date set for
hearing the agency may withdraw its order for purposes
of reconsideration.  If an agency withdraws an order
for purposes of reconsideration, it shall, within such
time as the court may allow, affirm, modify or reverse
its order.  If the petitioner is dissatisfied with the
agency action after withdrawal for purposes of
reconsideration, the petitioner may refile the petition
for review and the review shall proceed upon the
revised order.  An amended petition for review shall
not be required if the agency, on reconsideration,
affirms the order or modifies the order with only minor
changes.  If an agency withdraws an order for purposes
of reconsideration and modifies or reverses the order
in favor of the petitioner, the court shall allow the
petitioner costs, but not attorney fees, to be paid
from funds available to the agency."

4. 	Although the reissued final order in part referred to
the repealed administrative rule, the basis for the denial in
that order was the amended administrative rule.

5. 	Petitioner does not argue that DMV is failing to
administer its rule in an even-handed manner.  For example,
petitioner does not complain that DMV refused to approve an
application for a registration plate reading "GO DEMS" but had
approved a registration plate reading "GO GOP."  This court has
discussed some of the statutory and constitutional limits that
constrain a public body's discretion to engage in political
advocacy.  See Burt, 299 Or at 66-70 (discussing limits
applicable to government's advocacy in pursuit of its goals). 
Petitioner's challenge does not implicate those kinds of limits
on the way that government may carry out its business.
		Petitioner's arguments also do not raise questions
about the government's statutory authority to invite or to limit
public participation in its business communications.  See Burt,
299 Or at 70 (before addressing constitutional premises
underlying governmental speech, courts should address first what
ordinary laws authorize, require, or forbid).  Neither do
petitioner's arguments raise issues about attempts by government
to enforce parameters for such public participation as a pretext
to silence its opponents or to evade other constitutional
requirements.  See Or Const, Art I, § 20 (respecting equal
privileges and immunities); Art I, § 26 (respecting right of
"inhabitants of the State" to "consult for their common good[,]"
and to "[instruct] their Representatives").  Claims raising those
issues would require a different legal analysis than that applied
in this case.