Brett Shumate Warns Four States on Doj Vs State License Plates
The Justice Department warned four states on May 12 that doj vs state license plates could become a legal fight if they keep denying undercover plates to ICE agents. Brett Shumate, the DOJ Civil Division assistant attorney general, told Maine, Massachusetts, Washington and Oregon they were running afoul of the Supremacy Clause.
Shumate said Oregon’s DMV had directly run afoul of the Supremacy Clause by discriminating against the federal government. He wrote that Oregon was refusing to issue standard and undercover registrations and plates to federal agencies, including federal law enforcement agencies, while continuing to issue them to similarly situated state and local agencies without restriction.
Shumate’s May 12 Letter
Shumate’s letter to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek laid out the Justice Department’s position in specific terms. “By refusing to issue standard and undercover registrations and plates to federal agencies, including federal law enforcement agencies, while continuing to issue them to similarly-situated state and local agencies without restriction, Oregon’s DMV has directly run afoul of the Supremacy Clause by discriminating against the federal government,” he wrote.
The same warning went to the governors of Maine, Massachusetts, Washington and Oregon. The dispute centers on undercover license plates that conceal the identities of federal agents, and the Justice Department is treating the state refusals as a federal-law problem rather than a routine administrative dispute.
Supremacy Clause Fight
Charles Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the states were playing a dangerous game by refusing to help protect ICE agents. He added, “Federal law preempts state law when state law conflicts with a supreme federal law. And when it does, the state law is preempted, meaning that the state law cannot be given legal effect in those instances of conflict.”
Stimson also said, “There is no law in my mind that is conflicting with federal law. You simply have state actors refusing to issue these types of license plates.”
ICE Plates Dispute
He said the Justice Department would likely need to show that the plate restrictions conflict with a specific federal law. “So as much as I think that the DOJ is putting forth a plausible argument, I don't think there's a lot of ‘there’ there in this argument,” he said.
The clash gives the Justice Department and four Democratic-led states a new legal fight over how far states can go in limiting confidential plates for federal law enforcement. For readers in those states, the immediate issue is whether state motor vehicle agencies keep denying the plates, which would keep the dispute moving toward a possible lawsuit.
