Our long state specialty license plate nightmare has ended!
After years of advocacy by horticultural fans, the Venus Flytrap speciality license plate has been added to the list of approved specialty license plates; according to the North Carolina Botanical Garden, they will be sent to the 794 people who have preordered them and then will be available to all NC citizens.
As we noted last May, the plate was blocked for years by a single senator, Bill Rabon, a Republican who also chairs the Senate’s Rules Committee. For whatever reason, he opposed the license plate and never let it get approved by the Senate, even though it won unanimous support from the NC House in 2021. In the current legislative session, a bill approving the license plate unanimously passed the NC House in May 2023, and once again got locked up in Rabon’s Rules Committee. But the provision authorizing the new license plate was included in House Bill 199, a general transportation bill, which easily passed both bodies and was signed into law by the governor today, July 3.
The NC Botanical Garden expressed its thanks to Chapel Hill’s own representative, Allen Buansi (District 56), and Representative Frank Iler, a Republican on Oak Island, and we do as well! At least one blog blogger is eagerly awaiting their new plate.