The House unanimously passed House Bill 1044 amending the provisions related to the Purple Heart license plate. First of all, my obligatory comment that the legislature spends far too much time on license plates. I think there are 30 of them at this point.
This bill will expand eligibility to motorcycles in addition to passenger motor vehicles. It also makes an interesting change to the people who are eligible. Currently, an individual is eligible if “the person has received a Purple Heart decoration that is awarded to a person who suffers an injury while serving as a member of the armed forces of the United States.” Under the new law, eligibility would be limited to “an individual who has received a Purple Heart decoration that is awarded to an individual who is wounded in action against an enemy of the United States or as a result of an act of an enemy of the United States if the wound necessitates treatment by a medical officer.”
I don’t know whether, under this definition and under the military’s Purple Heart rules, there are those who have been awarded a Purple Heart who will be ineligible. To me, the way to draft the statute would be to say that an individual who has received a Purple Heart is eligible for the license plate, and leave it at that.
[tags]HB1044-2007, license plates[/tags]
Doug,
Agreed. This is pretty stupid. If the General Assembly has a problem with the way the Department of Defense is determining eligibility for the Purple Heart, then they can pass a resolution scolding the DoD.
Coming up with their own definition of “Purple Heart” just stinks. Let them change the license plate to say “Injured Combat Veteran” with a flag and an eagle or whatever, instead.
If the General Assembly’s problem is that they feel the definition of “Purple Heart” has been diluted, why are they unanimously resolved to dilute it further by promoting confusion?
Is the problem that Purple Hearts only go to the military? Are they trying to envision a time when civilians might come under routine attack by the evil hordes? Or is this so that John Kerry won’t be able to get an Indiana Purple Heart plate, since a few wingnuts think he somehow shot himself?
T,
I don’t think it’s the former of your scenarios — as I read the proposed language, it restricts eligibility for the plate to a strict subset of receipients of the Purple Heart. Civilians who were injured by the “enemy” wouldn’t become eligible for a Purple Heart license plate as I read this.
Unless the military has changed the eligibility for a Purple Heart, I don’t understand this. :(