The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
The Ohio Poverty Law Center is praising a bill passed in the lame-duck session of the Ohio General Assembly that is intended to reduce the huge number of Ohioans whose driver’s licenses are suspended because of unpaid debts or drug offenses. The bill awaits Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature.
In a state so poor that a fourth of Ohioans are on Medicaid, 1 million have suspended licenses because of debts from things such as a lack of insurance, unpaid fines and court costs, according to a 2022 analysis by the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.
“Debt-related suspensions trap drivers with limited resources in a vicious cycle,” the report said. “Fines and fees related to seemingly minor traffic stops can easily spiral into thousands of dollars owed to the state. Drivers unable to pay these debts cannot get their licenses back, which for most Ohioans means they cannot drive to work to earn the money needed to pay down the debt, without risking even more driving restrictions, fines, fees, or even jail.”
The suspensions are concentrated most heavily in impoverished urban communities of color, the analysis found. Not only is that bad news for poor people needing to get to work and businesses in need of employees, it risks disenfranchising thousands under Ohio’s strict voter ID law.
But new legislation, House Bill 29, prevents many debt and drug-related license suspensions. The bill, sponsored by Reps. Latyna Humphrey, D-Columbus, and Darnell T. Brewer, D-Cleveland, mandates several measures aimed at reducing license suspensions:
- It eliminates suspensions for failure to pay court fines or fees both retroactively and automatically, without reinstatement fees.
- It ends suspensions for drug-abuse offenses, unless they involve manufacture or trafficking with the offender using a vehicle in the commission of the offense.
- It reduces the lookback period for driving without insurance offenses. Where previously drivers could be charged as repeat offenders if caught driving without insurance twice in five years, they would have to be caught twice in 12 months to be charged as repeat offender under the bill just passed.
- It eliminates school truancy as a reason to deny licenses or to suspend them.
- It allows people whose licenses are suspended for failure to pay child support to ask a judge to allow limited driving privileges in all circumstances, not just when the motion is made during contempt proceedings.
In a statement, the Ohio Poverty Law Center said provisions from a separate Senate bill were amended into H.B. 29, making it much stronger.
“In Ohio, 1 million drivers currently have suspended driver’s licenses. Approximately 60% of these suspensions are the result of debt-related and issues other than dangerous driving,” it said. “With the inclusion of the provisions from Senate Bill 37, House Bill 29 goes a long way toward ensuring that a person’s ability to pay a fine or fee should not determine whether they are free to drive. In fact, the bill will help hundreds of thousands of Ohioans get their licenses back immediately and dramatically reduce the number of suspensions in the future.”
The statement added, “We thank Senate Bill 37’s co-sponsors, Sen. Louis Blessing III (R-Colerain Township) and Senator Catherine Ingram (D-Cincinnati) for their dedication to eliminating debt-related driver’s license suspensions. We also thank Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Nathan Manning (R-North Ridgeville) for his efforts to advance the legislation through the amendment process. They all have continually demonstrated their understanding that eliminating debt-related suspensions will put Ohioans back on track to a more productive future.”
