Man sues Ohio BMV over rejection of 'F46 LGB' license plate

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A man wants to put a custom license plate on his car – and he’s willing to take the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to court over it.

Heath resident Jeffrey Wonser has sued the BMV for what he says are the bureau’s unconstitutional guidelines for approving and rejecting vanity license plate applications. In the federal complaint, filed May 3, Wonser argues the bureau’s rejection of his “F46 LGB” plate amounts to a free speech violation and is part of a pattern of the bureau’s “standardless and unconstitutional licensing scheme.”

Ohio has allowed residents to customize license plates since 1973, and for years, the BMV did not have clear rules for evaluating the appropriateness of messages. In 2003, however, the BMV settled with Anthony Zucco, who sued after it rejected his application to put “RDRAGE” on a license plate. 

As part of that settlement, the BMV established guidelines for rejecting license plates. Under the guidelines, plates could only be rejected if they contained words, combinations or phrases that are profane, obscene, sexually explicit, refer to feces, advocate lawlessness or are so offensive as to provoke violence.

But Wonser argues that the BMV has continued to operate a “largely arbitrary censorship regime” that, in particular, rejects Republican-aligned license plate messages more than Democratic ones.

“Under its new scheme, the BMV has allowed its censors to run amok, censoring messages not because they violate any of the Zucco criteria, but because they violate its censors’ subjective criteria,” Wonser’s complaint reads.

Wonser applied to put the phrase “F46 LGB” on a license plate. While the complaint doesn’t specify what message he intended to convey with the message, it notes that it can commonly be perceived as referring to “F*** the 46th president” – Joe Biden – and “Let’s Go Brandon,” a phrase adopted by conservatives as a euphemism for “F*** Joe Biden.”

The BMV rejects hundreds of applications each year, including nearly 800 in 2023. It rejected Wonser’s application because of the “potential perception of inappropriateness,” according to the complaint. But Wonser argues that “F46 LGB” has no objective meaning, and is not in and of itself obscene, profane or sexually explicit.

Wonser further contends that the BMV’s guidelines are so overly broad and vague that they run afoul of the First Amendment. His complaint points to examples of what he says demonstrates the BMV’s subjective and arbitrary decision-making, including:

• Rejecting an application for “FK BIDEN” but approving one for “FKTRMP”
• Rejecting “AXEHOLE” as profane, but approving “AXE HOLE”
• Rejecting “GYLTY,” which was approved in 2013, but which in 2021 was retroactively determined to possibly provoke the police to violence

Wonser not only wants the court to order the BMV to approve his license plate application, he wants the BMV’s guidelines struck down as unconstitutional. The BMV declined to comment.