South Dakota vanity plate restrictions were unconstitutional, lawsuit settlement says

South Dakota officials will no longer deny applications for personalized license plates based on whether the plate's message is deemed to be “offensive to good taste and decency," following the state's admission that the language is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights.

The change is part of a settlement state officials reached in a lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Lyndon Hart. His 2022 application to the Motor Vehicle Division for a vanity plate reading “REZWEED” was denied after state officials called it “in bad taste.”

Hart runs a business called Rez Weed Indeed, which he uses to support the legal selling and use of marijuana on Native American reservations. Hart intended for the personalized license plate to refer to his business and its mission of promoting tribal sovereignty, the ACLU said.

The section of the law allowing for denial of personalized plates based on the decency clause is “unconstitutional on its face and as applied to the plaintiff," said U.S. District Judge Roberto Lange in an order signed Friday. The unconstitutional clause can’t be used to issue or recall personalized plates, Lange wrote.