Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is acting to remove the Confederate flag from his state’s license plates.
McAuliffe said Tuesday he would take that step in response to last week’s racially motivated shooting in South Carolina. He also said it’s a reaction to the Supreme Court’s recent decision saying states have the power to restrict license plate designs.
“Even its display on state issued license tags is, in my view, unnecessarily divisive and hurtful to too many of our people,” McAuliffe said in a statement.
McAuliffe noted that a Virginia law from 1999 requires specialty plates for Sons of Confederate Veterans, and that federal court decisions required the Confederate flag emblem to be used. However, he said the Supreme Court gives him the leeway to remove the symbol.
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“Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could indeed prevent the confederate emblem from being placed on their license plates, directly contradicting the prior court rulings in Virginia,” he said. “Accordingly, I have directed the following actions to remove the Confederate emblem from state-issued license plates.”
Those actions include asking the Attorney General to reverse prior court rulings that required use of the Confederate flag, and asking his secretary of transportation to replace current plates.
McAuliffe’s action against the Confederate flag followed a call from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who said Monday that the Confederate flag should be removed from the Statehouse grounds. Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn, a top Republican state lawmaker, simultaneously called for a change to his state’s flag. Mississippi’s flag is the only state flag in the U.S. that still carries the rebel symbol in its emblem.
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are among the states that offer Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates.
The issue became a priority after last week’s Charleston church shooting that left nine black worshippers dead. The shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, has said he was motivated to start a “racial war” and has been photographed with the Confederate flag.
