10 March 2026
To: All MDRA member offices
Fr: MDRA Legislative Committee
As a follow up to our legislative alert issued on Friday last week, we wish to inform you of the outcome from yesterday’s House hearing:
Yesterday, the House Transportation Committee heard HF 3864 (Luger-Nicolai) that concerns eliminating the requirement to display plate tabs, as well as HF 1335 (Tabke) that would allow for the creation of a digital driver license credential. Both measures failed to advance out of committee.
MDRA lobbyist Jim Hirst testified on our behalf for both bills.
Specific to HF 3864, we stressed that eliminating tabs would devastate our offices and would likely result in massive closures statewide. This proposal would only accelerate the loss of our renewal business, which is already under siege from online competition. Furthermore, compliance to renew one’s annual registrations would plummet if the tabs were to be eliminated, which would be a devastating blow to the state’s road and bridge fund that relies heavily on this revenue. Enforcement would be difficult in determining whether a vehicle on our roads was compliant if the tabs were no longer necessary. Additionally, we pointed out that if a vehicle hadn’t paid their registration tax and subsequently was sold in a private sale, how would we deal with this when the new owner comes into our office to transfer the title? Would the new owner need to pay the outstanding tax before finalizing the transfer? That would NOT be a pleasant customer interaction at our counter!
No one testified in support of the bill. A vote WAS taken on the bill which failed on a tied party-line vote, despite chair Tabke’s assurances to us late last week that a vote would not be taken.
Regarding HF 1335 (the digital DL bill), we have previously supported this legislation in the past as it would still require the hard credential and not replace it. However, chair Tabke (the bill author) had two amendments to offer up for discussion only purposes which he later withdrew:
The first was language for an electronic signature and e-submission of documents which is a Carvana initiative to move towards e-titling. This incremental approach actually has merit and is NOT e-titling, but it hasn’t been fully reviewed by us. We testified that while we were not opposed to the concept, we wanted to make sure we were indemnified should a submission we relied upon turned out to be fraudulent.
However, the second amendment was the most alarming. This amendment featured a poorly thought-out and convoluted revenue sharing proposal for deputies. As proposed, it would direct DVS to make annual payments to every county, who in turn would then distribute it to “public offices” in their county. There is NO consideration for private offices. It would also phase out ALL deputy filing fees, including last year’s enacted “no-fee” transaction reimbursements!
We testified in opposition to this approach and stated that while we appreciated the general subject matter being raised, this is the absolutely WRONG method to accomplish revenue sharing for deputy offices. We believe this is best accomplished in pursuing HF 2605 (Olson) which was introduced last year rather than discussing a hastily drafted amendment from last week which we were NEVER consulted on.
Ultimately, HF 1335 (which is a bipartisan bill) was also denied passage in committee, again on a split party-line vote even though these amendments were never attached.
Thank you, members, for your attention and involvement with MDRA legislative activities. Tomorrow’s annual MDRA Day on the Hill will certainly be timely!
MDRA Legislative Committee
Jim Hirst, MDRA lobbyist
