Kei Vehicle Update, Georgia Legislation VETOED by Governor Kemp

Transcript

Hey everybody, it's Steven Lefkoff over here at Lefkoff Law in Sandy Springs, Georgia. We are Georgia's preeminent law firm for motor vehicle businesses. That's dealers, finance, repair, repo, auction, manufacturing, warranty, etc. If it's a business that touches cars, we represent it, and we provide general counsel for those businesses. So, litigation, employment, contract review, contract drafting, research, risk analysis, and just general advice for those businesses.

And I come to you today with a bit of bad news. You may be aware of Georgia's new legislation that passed in this year's legislative session allowing Kei cars, right, mini trucks, to be back on the roads here in Georgia. Well, unfortunately, the governor vetoed that bill this year. That's House Bill 308. Let me explain what happened.

A few years back, the Department of Revenue started cancelling registrations on mini trucks. These are Kei vehicles, and they are imported from Japan. A whole host of different manufacturers make these trucks. They are old. We're talking generally over 25 years old, which would have made them eligible for certain exceptions to Georgia's registration requirements. But the Department of Revenue nonetheless was cancelling these registrations. And so you had a number of dealers that had inventory that they now could not sell. You had enthusiasts that owned these vehicles that they no longer could drive on the roads because the registrations were being cancelled. So a number of lawsuits were filed against the Department of Revenue. There were appeals made. These were all pending.

And then this year, the Georgia legislature passed a bill in early April, during this year's legislative session, once again allowing the registration of these vehicles. It had certain carve-out exceptions that allowed Kei trucks to be registered once again here in the state of Georgia, which would have been huge, obviously, for the mini truck enthusiasts, for the dealers, for the importers, and for all the businesses that relate to these mini trucks, including repair shops that specialize in imports and work on these trucks. And if you're wondering what these are: think of, you know, if you go to like a farmers market and you see the florist, they have those little tiny trucks and they roll up the sides and they put all their flowers on it, and in the front of the truck it's like seats for two, essentially. The whole thing is like six feet long. It's a tiny little truck. That's what we're talking about here.

So, back to what happened. The bill was passed in the legislature, and unfortunately last week the governor vetoed the bill and refused to sign it, making it dead on arrival, right? No longer going to be passed. Now, what's interesting, and this is kind of a lesson in legislative drafting and in statutory drafting, is that the governor did not veto the bill because of the Kei car exception. They didn't veto it because it was allowing mini trucks back on the road. There was additional stuff in the bill completely unrelated to these mini trucks, and that was the subject of the veto. That specific language was about speed limiting devices, and it allowed judges to order, in certain cases, that speed limiters be installed on vehicles — these intelligent speed limiting devices. And the governor's veto said that essentially that was too broad of authority for judges, and it wasn't specific enough as to when those could or would be applied on people's vehicles.

So the governor vetoed the bill. The governor in most cases doesn't have the authority to just white-label or blue-pencil, as we would call it, certain portions of a bill and say I'm not allowing this or this but I'll sign the rest. Unfortunately, for the way our system works, if the governor finds a problem in a bill and refuses to sign it, then that veto is applied to the entire bill.

So this is terrible news, obviously, for the mini truck and Kei car community, the enthusiasts here in Georgia and those nationwide that were following this story and seeing: is Georgia going to follow a lot of the other states recently who have started to re-allow these into the stream of commerce here in the states and allow them on their roads? So, bad news. What this means, though, moving forward, is now we wait, unfortunately, another year until next spring, when hopefully another state legislature will pick this bill up again and either make the changes that the governor said were the issues with the veto, or remove that language completely and make a bill just about mini trucks and Kei cars, so that we can once again put them on the roads.

But if you've seen me on the Mark Arum Show, if you've seen my posts on Reddit, if you've seen social media posts saying that this is on its way to the governor's desk to be signed — we all thought it was going to happen. And unfortunately, it's not. So, don't go driving your mini trucks just yet. We'll have to wait just a little bit longer for hopefully this legislation to pass and be signed next year.

If you have any questions, reach out to us over here at Lefkoff Law. Again, if you're a dealer, finance company, or any business in the motor vehicle industry, whether Kei cars or domestics or imports or high-end luxury vehicles, we're your team here in the state of Georgia. Hope you have a great rest of your day, and hope to bring you better news next time.