Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed into law a bill to create a specialized license plate using the tea party-adopted symbol. But that has upset some tea party members, who don’t back the measure, ABC 15 TV in Phoenix reported Wednesday.
The new license plate features the coiled rattle snake sitting over the saying “don’t tread on me” made famous by the Gadsen flag, which is where the symbol originated from. The plates cost $25, and the law allows for $17 of that fee to go to tea party affiliated groups.
Well, some tea party members don’t’ want it.
"The tea parties are about less government, not more government,” Vera Anderson, who leads the Daisy Mountain Tea Party Patriots. “This [law] created an agency for the state with a board of 13 people to administer money."
Even though the money would benefit her organization, Anderson says she would never compromise her political principles.
"Absolutely not!” she said. “From the very beginning I expressed my opinion that this was not a good idea."
Courtney Snell of the Mountain View Tea Party sees it another way.
"It provides the funds,” Snell said. “It gets the idea of the tea party out there. The advertising coming from the plate and what it says is something people will think about each time they see it. If I want a 'Don't tread on me' license plate, that's up to me if I want to spend the money or not."
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