A proposed Texas license plate created to honor Confederate veterans is under fire from elected officials who have vowed to protest the plate’s Confederate flag design, the Houston Chronicle reports. Continue reading after the jump.
“We cannot allow the state to issue a symbol of intimidation,” U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said to a crowd of community leaders outside the Civil Courthouse Saturday.
Lee and other officials plan to go to Austin on Nov. 10, when the Department of Motor Vehicles votes on the design, with petitions and a letter from 17 state legislators to persuade them to vote against the license plates.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said that allowing these license plates would be allowing the people who lost a war to write history.
The Department of Motor Vehicles’ vote on the plate in April ended in a 4-4 tie, with one member absent. The controversial design was created to honor Confederate veterans on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.
According to the paper, the proposal is sponsored by Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson on behalf of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that has won approval of the plates in nine other states, including Georgia, Maryland and Tennessee. It has filed and won lawsuits in states where its requests were denied.
According to the group, proceeds from the sale of the plates would be used to place markers on Confederate soldiers’ graves and to build monuments honoring Confederate heroes.
