Plate Tectonics: Court orders release of data

By John Milne on Tuesday, July 8, 2003.

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New Hampshire’s Supreme Court has allowed one member of the public one look at a state secret – the list of who has low-number license plates.

It may be the last look.

The ruling was a limited one. The court allowed just one specific request by an activist seeking further controls on drunken driving.

N-H-P-R political correspondent John Milne reports that the case has political ramifications over and above the letter of the law:

There aren’t many signs of political influence in New Hampshire. Few people have limousines. More than one legislative leader drives a pick-up truck to Concord. North of the Merrimack River, an Italian silk suit is as rare as a bald eagle.

Perhaps the only way to compile a Who’s Who of New Hampshire leadership is to look at their license plates.

In the Eisenhower administration, former Governor Sherman Adams drove around Washington in a green convertible, license plate 22.

In the first Bush administration, former Governor John Sununu drove to the White House in a green convertible, license 22. (Sununu gave himself the plate after Adams died.)

Former Governor Jeanne Shaheen still has the four-digit plate she got from Governor Hugh Gallen.

This prize has been awarded to political contributors and publishers. A former deputy attorney general once said that he knew who owned every plate from 1 to 99. A state legislator said one long-ago governor offered him a three-digit plate for his “yes” vote.

The Union Leader occasionally published the list of low-digit plates for the entertainment of political insiders.

So there was a lot of political history when, in 1997, Peter and Linda DeVere sought the list. They cited the state Right-to-Know law.

Peter Devere described himself as an activist seeking tougher regulations against drunken driving. He said the list would show that Shaheen had awarded low-number plates to contributors and supporters. He suggested that police gave the well-connected favorable treatment.

Those assertions were never proven. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Livernois (liver-noise):
License1
The court accepted, for purposes of ruling, Mr. DeVere’s claims, that there was this link he was trying to prove, but there never was any evidence or testimony about it.

The DeVeres’ lawyer, Jon Meyer, said this was a matter of principle – public access to information. But the release of information will prove or disprove the DeVeres’ original assertion.

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It certainly will indicate whether there was a correlation between people making political contributions and people getting low-digit license plates in the same time frame.

Not so fast, said the Department of Safety. A federal law requires the states to protect the privacy of driver records. That, said Livernois, trumps the Right-to-Know Law:
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New Hampshire’s driver privacy act was enacted in response to a federal statute, which requires the states to protect the privacy rights of motorists. I think that was in response to a fairly well-publicized stalking case, where a woman was murdered based upon the release of motor vehicle records.

This was no longer just about political gossip. Serious issues of access to information and public safety were at stake.

The Supreme Court responded with a narrow decision. The information must be released to Linda DeVere (Peter DeVere died while this case was in court). But there are limits. Jon Meyer:

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I suspect what’s going to happen is that we will finally, five years later, get the records that Peter requested in 1997, and I’m sure that Linda will want to look at them and review them, and do the type of research that Peter and Linda were originally attempting to do. I want to add though that the law makes clear – not the law, but the decision of the trial court – protects the individual records, so Linda will not be disclosing any names.

The Legislature has tried to make sure this is the last release of license-plate information. The A-G’s Livernois:
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The particular provision of the statute the Supreme Court ruled on in this case has now been amended. And so any access to motor vehicle records must now be released under the new statute.

The new statute limits information release only to profit-making corporations. Expect another lawsuit.

For NHPR News, I’m John Milne