News-Record.com

The House Finance Committee held one of their auction sessions this morning, clearing out a bunch of local bills with no real controversy attached to them. At the end, Rep. Pryor Gibson, one of the committee’s chairs, warned his members and anyone else who happened to be listening that a reckoning was coming with regard to license plates.

In particular, Gibson said he was concerned about the proliferation of special plates that honor particular causes. Usually, the extra fees paid for those plates help fund whatever the cause may be. (In Greensboro there's a special plate authorized to support Guilford Battleground. Bills have been filed this year to support the High Point Furniture Market, Girl Scouts and the Town of Oak Island.)

Dozens of such bills have been filed this session, he said, and more were coming. (My own rough count shows 51 such bills filed between the House and Senate, but I could be missing some.)

"It's getting a little out of hand," Gibson said.

Members who had plate bills in should expect to see e-mails tweaking the boiler-plate language of such measures or adding another layer of scrutiny. Bottom line: it'll get harder to get a special plate authorized by the General Assembly.

"That's fair warning," Gibson said. "I don't know when it will come but it will be very soon."