Gibbs signals Obama unlikely to use special D.C. plates

President Obama’s presidential limousines likely won’t adorn Washington, D.C. license plates featuring the pithy “Taxation without Representation” slogan, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs signaled Monday.

“I think rather than change the logo around the license plate, the president is committed instead to changing the status of the District of Columbia,” Gibbs said during the daily press briefing.

The license plate has been seen as a badge promoting more rights in Congress for the District, which is only alloted a nonvoting delegate in the House. The slogan on license plates refers to D.C. residents having to pay federal taxes without being alloted a voting member of Congress.

The Congress had taken up a bill to give D.C. a formal vote in Congress, but it had stalled after Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) had attached an expansive gun rights amendment that some Washington-area Democrats had found unpalatable.

“I guess I would ask you to ask people in Washington whether they’d like to have that status changed, or that symbolism screwed onto the back of a limousine?” Gibbs rhetorically asked, before ridiculing a reporter’s question about why the president hadn’t used the alternative license plates as a sign of support.

“It’s endearing that you’re equating the two,” Gibbs said.

The limo sports regular D.C. tags without the slogan, as it did during the presidency of George W. Bush. President Clinton was the last to use the “Taxation without Representation” plates.