LoL! Tea Party doesn’t want guvmint license plates

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You know the political media in this state is lame when the New York Times comes to town and scoops them on a story (OK, some of this was kinda sorta reported buried deep in some reporting awhile back). In Arizona, Tea Party License Plate Draws Opposition From Its Honorees:

When conservative Republicans pushed a bill through the Arizona Legislature creating a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate design that would be used to raise money for Tea Party groups in the state, opposition was expected from Democrats, liberals and other assorted antagonists.

The surprise was that the biggest opposition has come from Tea Party members themselves, who say their renegade, grass-roots movement was built on suspicion of government, and they are not too keen to start playing financial footsie with the enemy.

“No, I won’t buy one,” said Jim Wise, a Tea Party activist from this community northwest of Phoenix, who wrote to lawmakers in a failed effort to nix the plates. “I realize the people behind this had the best of intentions, but it goes against what we stand for, which is limited government.”

There has been a movement in state capitals across the country to commemorate the Tea Party on the backs of cars, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The group has tallied at least 10 other states considering such plates this year, three of which — Virginia, Texas and Mississippi — have joined Arizona in endorsing them. But opposition has been most heated in Arizona, and mostly from Tea Party backers.

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[T]he bureaucracy created to handle the plates rubs many activists the wrong way. A 13-member committee appointed by the governor, the Senate president and the House speaker will dole out the money from the plates to Tea Party groups. Groups must submit applications to be considered and agree to open their books for government audits to show how they spent the money.

That sounds like an expansion of government to some Tea Party members. Many of them studiously avoid government money in running their groups and oppose the idea of increasing government, even by 13 people.

“This is classic government,” said Trent Humphries, a co-founder of the Tucson Tea Party, who said he would not serve on the committee if asked. “I don’t know a Tea Party person who supports this.”

Mr. Humphries is pushing for the law to be amended in the next legislative session so that the money raised from the plates goes directly to ease the state’s budget woes and not to finance individual Tea Party groups, a change he believes fellow activists would back.

The Arizona plates have attracted the attention of Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, who introduced legislation in Washington this week to take away 15 percent of a state’s federal highway money if license plate revenue goes to groups advocating for political candidates.

“Using official government resources to help bankroll an explicit political agenda — whether on the right or left — is flat-out wrong,” said Mr. Ackerman, who is calling his bill the “License Plate Political Slush Fund Prevention Act.”