To Sen. Ronnie Chance: We reside in your district, we are University of Florida alumni, one of the original 1,000 Gator tag applicants, and we want you to know that we oppose H.B. 1165.

After graduating from college with a master’s degree, we made our home in Georgia. We have lived in Georgia for 29 years (18 of those years in Fayette County), raised a family and love the state of Georgia. We have a son that currently attends Kennesaw State University.

We also love the university that gave us our start in life and were thrilled when the Atlanta Gator Club was finally successful in getting UF Georgia license plates approved this year.

My husband and I are registered voters and we expect that our elected officials should represent all citizens of the state of Georgia, not only those that graduated from the University of Georgia.

Georgia citizens have graduated from universities all across the United States and all of us are your constituents. I expect the state of Georgia to treat all of its citizens with fairness and equality, regardless of what college they attended.

Georgia currently has a process in place for the review and approval of out-of-state university license plates, of which three colleges have gone through the process and have been approved. It is not an easy process because it has taken a very long time for the Atlanta Gator Club to get the plates approved.

It is ridiculous that the Georgia legislature is considering changing the law to require other states to reciprocate and allow specialty license plates for Georgia universities on the same terms as the terms that the state of Georgia uses to approve and issue the other state’s university license plates.

States rarely have the same terms for anything, so this bill calling for a “reciprocity agreement” on the same terms as the Georgia law is simply a thinly disguised way of eliminating license plates for other colleges that certain University of Georgia graduates find undesirable.

However, if there is any doubt about the real purpose of this legislation, the opinion column written by Tony Simon, lobbyist and chairman of the Red and Black Political Action Committee, in the Feb. 28 AJC puts the doubt to rest. His letter is insulting and a mockery and ends with “Go Dawgs!”

When did athletic rivalry get to the nasty level where it enters politics with the intent to discriminate against other Georgia citizens? And are our elected Georgia representatives going to support this nastiness?

More importantly, surely our elected representatives of the state of Georgia would not vote to turn away millions of dollars in future voluntary contributions to the state treasury from Georgia taxpayers who are alumni of out-of-state universities. We are willing to pay extra for this specialty license plate privilege, which is extra money that supports the state of Georgia.

In closing, we ask that you respect our rights and privileges as Georgia citizens, taxpayers, and voters by not supporting H.B. 1165.

Cindy and Scott Ludwig

Peachtree City, Ga.

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