Virginia revokes license plates with Confederate flag after judge dissolves

Virginia’s plates honor the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The story has been updated to reflect the DMV’s decision to recall the plates.

Virginia is recalling the 1,691 specialty license plates featuring a Confederate battle flag, state officials said Thursday.

Late Thursday, Kiser filed his written order, paving the way for the state to begin the flag recall, said Michael Kelly, spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring, who sought to lift the injunction.

Back in 2001, federal Judge Jackson L. Kiser ruled that specialty license plates “conveyed the speech of the driver” and that the state could not deny the application of Sons of Confederate Veterans for a license plate that included the Confederate battle flag.

“When comparing the two cases, the procedure for issuing specialty license plates is so vastly different between Texas and Virginia that there is an important legal question as to whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s Walker decision even applies here”, Fred D. Taylor, an attorney for the group, said a in news release.

Herring’s office asked Kiser to dissolve the injunction after Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said in June that he would move to have the plates phased out.

“When the Supreme Court speaks, district courts must listen”.

The state had been blocked for 14 years from banning the tags because of a federal injunction won by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “Because the underlying injunction violates that right, I have no choice but to dissolve it”.

In 1999, the General Assembly authorized the plates but prohibited any logo on the design.