Not to worry fellow Texans, our duly elected and duly indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton isn’t letting nettlesome things like criminal charges against him or ongoing investigations of him get in the way of doing his day job (which he now believes includes a heavy dose of saying bad things about and sometimes suing the Biden administration).
Just this week Paxton opined on a question posed to him last year by prosecutors. I told you about that in October 2020 when Montgomery County District Attorney Brett W. Ligon and Montgomery County Attorney B.D. Griffin sought Paxton’s official input on an issue of note in their Houston-area community.
Simple question: Do you need a driver license to operate a golf cart on public streets on which they are legal in Texas?
The prosecutors told Paxton in their opinion request that state law seemed confusing on this question. Sometimes state laws are confusing. Sometimes lawyers like it that way because sometimes confusing state laws generate something lawyers like to refer to as “billable hours,” which are their favorite kind.
We all have seen golf carts carting golfers around on public streets. Sometimes said golfers are heading to a golf course. Sometimes not. Looks like fun. And to my non-golfer sensibility, driving a golf cart looks like more fun than driving a golf ball. And some law enforcement officials have cited a problem with kids enjoying the joys of golf carts on public streets.
Paxton’s opinion dissects the question into its component parts. State law requires a driver license for the operation of a motor vehicle on a public thoroughfare. This, he wrote, has been litigated, producing a state appellate court decision in 2000 that definitively said, “It is well established the State of Texas can and does require a valid driver’s license for all persons operating a motor vehicle on the roads of the state.”
Further, Paxton determined, golf carts are vehicles with motors and, as such, qualify as motor vehicles under state law. But state law also carves out some specific rules for golf carts, he noted. They’re exempt from motor vehicle registration and “subject to their own license plate requirements.” And, he added, they’re “generally exempt from the usual vehicle equipment requirements.”
But, he wrote, “No statute exempts the operator of a golf cart … from the license-holding requirements” of state law.
So that’s decided, at least for now. AG opinions are not law. So feel free to operate a golf cart on a public street without a driver license if you’re willing to incur billable hours to challenge this in court.
While we’re talking about driver licenses and vehicles, this seems like a good time to remind you about something the Texas Department of Public Safety is reminding you about. The waiver on expiration dates for driver licenses and identification cards ends April 14.
The waiver had been in place since March 2020 when Gov. Greg Abbott issued a COVID-19-related executive order that suspended expiration dates on certain government-issued documents.
You’ve been reminded and warned. And ditto for vehicle registrations.