Tzedek DC Report

Driving DC to Opportunity: Wealth Should Not Determine Who Gets to Keep Their Driver’s License

What problem does this report address?

DC’s “Clean Hands” law currently disqualifies tens of thousands of residents from renewing their driver’s licenses as punishment for as little as $101 of unpaid fines or fees to the DC Government. In April 2021, a new report regarding the problems with that law, “Driving DC to Opportunity,” was released by a 32-organization coalition of civil rights, faith-based, consumer protection, and justice advocacy groups led by Tzedek DC in partnership with a pro bono team from the law firm Venable LLP. The report highlights real-life stories from District residents injured by this discriminatory law, which in effect ties the ability to drive lawfully in DC to wealth. The report makes it clear that reform of the Clean Hands Law is needed to end the current system’s automatic withholding of driver’s licenses from all DC residents with unpaid fines or fees without any inquiry as to their ability to pay.

How does the current application of the Clean Hands Law to driver's licenses punish poverty?

The Clean Hands Law punishes poverty because fines and fees disproportionately affect poorer DC residents. The law applies to a wide array of fines and fees, including parking and speeding tickets, and makes no exception for persons who lack the ability to pay their debt. Drivers with thousands of dollars in tickets, even for dangerous conduct like running red lights and speeding, generally can renew their licenses as long as they have the means to pay. Accordingly, a wealthy person who commits the same infraction as a poor person will pay for the right to continue to drive and regain their driver’s license. By contrast, in many cases, a person without income or wealth simply can’t, and in those cases, that person will lose the right to the driver when their license expires. The only material difference between the driver who is allowed to keep driving and the driver who is barred from renewing their licenses under the Clean Hands Law is poverty.

How does the current application of the Clean Hands Law to driver's licenses affect residents’ ability to get a job, and how does it affect employers in the region?

By necessity, driving remains the most common way for workers to commute to their jobs in the DC region. According to one Brookings Institute study, about two out of every three jobs in the DC metro requires a car to get to work within 90 minutes. And holding a valid driver’s license is often a requirement for many jobs that provide a pathway out of poverty, such as construction, manufacturing, and security. So, without a valid driver’s license, it is dramatically harder for DC residents to find and sustain employment. Having access to fewer licensed drivers also hurts employers, who must hire and train new employees from a reduced labor pool.

How does the current application of the Clean Hands Law to driver's licenses exacerbate racial inequities in the District?

The law as applied to driver’s licenses implicates racial equity concerns, in at least three major ways.

First, Black drivers receive a disproportionate share of the traffic tickets issued in DC—approximately 65% of the tickets issued during traffic stops—despite making up just 43% of DC’s population.

Second, even as Black drivers are more likely than white drivers to face fines that must be paid in order to receive or renew a driver’s license, Black DC residents are, on average, also much less likely than white residents to have the financial resources to pay those fines. The median white household in DC has a net worth of $284,000, 81 times the net worth of the median Black household, $3,500.

Finally, because it deprives drivers of their licenses based on debt alone, the Clean Hands Law exposes DC residents who need to drive to the risk of criminal prosecution and jail. In DC, driving without a valid license is a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. MPD data reveals that Black DC residents are 19 times more likely than white residents to be arrested for driving without a valid license—exposing Black DC residents to incarceration risks at a disproportionate rate.

What are the criminal justice implications of this law?

The Clean Hands Law exposes residents to criminal punishment because it prevents people from obtaining or renewing their license so that they may drive lawfully. Driving without a valid driver’s license is not inherently dangerous yet exposes motorists to arrest, charge, and conviction. People continue to drive without a valid license to get to their jobs, childcare, medical appointments, groceries, the laundromat, and other necessities of daily life.

Is the current application of the Clean Hands Rule to driver's licenses constitutional?

No. As detailed in the report, because it automatically bars residents from renewing a driver’s license for the nonpayment of debt, with no inquiry as to their ability to pay, DC’s wealth-based driver’s license scheme is unconstitutional under the Constitution’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Traffic fatalities in DC have been up recently. Would the proposal in the report pose risks to public safety?

No; the proposed reforms preserve—and indeed promote—public safety, in two distinct ways.

First, nothing in the report’s recommended reform would remove or change the important rules now in place to penalize those who drive in an unsafe way. For example, under current DC law, any aggravated reckless driving by a DC resident leads to immediate license revocation. Reforming the Clean Hands Law would not change that penalty in any way. Similarly, any person now who accumulates 8 or more points can have their license suspended by a hearing examiner, while 10 points lead to automatic suspension. The proposed reforms would not touch these outcomes in any way. Other offenses that currently lead to points/suspensions and that would remain in place include: following a vehicle too closely (2 points), failing to give right of way to a bicycle (3 points) failing to give right of way to a pedestrian (3 points), speeding more than 16 miles over the speed limit (4 points), and speeding in excess of 21 miles over the speed limit (5 points). Reforming the Clean Hands Law would not alter these consequences.

Second, it is the current system that now undermines public safety, by diverting limited police resources away from violent crime and towards the ticketing and processing of arrests for driving without a license. The proposal would fix that. Notably, the current increase in public safety incidents has occurred under the current rules.

People who drive in a seriously unsafe way should be off the roads; people should not be prevented from driving lawfully as a punishment for unpaid debt to the government. This core principle of the report promotes public safety and the public interest overall.

The DC government has a Vision Zero Action Plan, which is aiming to achieve zero fatalities and serious injuries to travelers by the year 2024. How do the proposals in your report complement that goal?

The DC government is one of 10 cities participating in a “Focus Cities Program” sponsored by the Vision Zero Network, a traffic safety project doing work around the U.S. that aims to achieve a highway system with no fatalities or serious injuries involving road traffic. See here, and for the DC government’s Vision Zero website, see here.

Vision Zero has stressed that the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries “can be achieved with a focus on the most important factors that contribute to these deaths and injuries—road design and policies such as managing speed for safety.” This system design work “must be conducted in a manner that achieves public safety while acknowledging and understanding the harms that resulted from policies that are inequitable and ineffective at achieving these objectives.” Vision Zero notes that debt-based driver’s license denials are precisely “one of those policies.”

The bedrock principle of our report—that people should not be prevented from driving lawfully as a punishment for unpaid debt to the government—is thus one that is embraced by and fully consistent with Vision Zero goals.

DC stopped suspending licenses for unpaid debt in 2018/19, and now the coalition of advocates proposes to allow debtors to the DC Government to be able to renew their licenses when they expired, too. Doesn’t this reward bad behavior?

No, not at all. DC’s 2018/19 reform, and the reform proposed here, both stem from a common governing principle: residents should only lose their ability to drive lawfully as punishment for unsafe use of their car, not for unpaid tickets that oftentimes flow from lack of wealth and nothing more. Because a driver’s license is so often a passport to economic opportunity, that principle is sound. The proposed reforms retain serious incentives to avoid unsafe driving.

For one thing, DC residents with the means to pay their debts will still have numerous incentives to do so, as a failure to pay can lead to such things as the denial of the ability to obtain professional or business licenses, and the withholding of DC tax refunds, and even vehicle registration. By contrast, ending the current practice will remove the disparate impacts that traffic debt has on drivers based on means. Often, these results stem from conduct that may have been as innocuous as the accrual of a parking violation over a decade ago. The current system, as one resident aptly stated, is “broken.”

The DC Council’s action in 2018 to end the suspensions of DC driver’s licenses based on unpaid debt was an important acknowledgment that driver’s licenses should be suspended only for public safety reasons. At the time, the Council considered, but failed to pass, an additional reform that would have ended the practice now required by the Clean Hands Law. The Council’s failure to act undercut its suspensions-related reform by continuing to allow what is, in effect, the slow-motion suspension of driver’s licenses for currently licensed drivers who will be barred from renewing their licenses.

By reforming the Clean Hands Law, DC will help give all residents the economic opportunity to repay the debts they owe and increase the pathways to jobs and stability.

What legislation addressing the application of the Clean Hands Law to driver’s licenses has been introduced since the Driving DC to Opportunity report was issued?

In the week following the report’s publication, two important bills were introduced in the Council of the District of Columbia, both of which were referred to and are currently pending in the Council’s Economic Development Committee:

B24-0230- DC Driving to Opportunity Amendment Act of 2021 was co-introduced by Councilmembers Elissa Silverman, Robert White, Janeese Lewis George, Charles Allen, Brooke Pinto, Mary Cheh, Christina Henderson, Anita Bonds, and Brianne Nadeau. This bill would remove driver’s license issuance and renewal from the current Clean Hands Law.

B24-0237- Clean Hands Certification Equity Amendment Act of 2021 was introduced by Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie and Brianne Nadeau. This bill would increase the minimum threshold for allowable debt from $100 to $5,000 and maintains driver’s license renewal denials for unpaid fines and fees of $5,000 or more.

Who are the current coalition members for this reform?

The coalition currently includes:

  • ACLU of the District of Columbia

  • Ayuda

  • Blind Justice

  • Bread for the City

  • Building Bridges Across the River

  • Capital Area Asset Builders (CAAB)

  • CARECEN

  • Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington

  • Coalition for Motorist Rights

  • Color of Change

  • DC Affordable Law Firm

  • DC Bar Pro Bono Center

  • DC Fiscal Policy Institute

  • DC Justice Lab

  • DC KinCare Alliance

  • DC Volunteers Lawyers Project

  • Fines and Fees Justice Center

  • Howard University School of Law Human and Civil Rights Clinic

  • Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington

  • Jews United for Justice

  • Legal Aid Justice Center

  • Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia

  • Legal Counsel for the Elderly

  • Network for Victim Recovery of DC (NVRDC)

  • Peter Edelman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy, Georgetown University Law Center

  • Pro Bono Institute

  • Rising for Justice

  • Tzedek DC

  • United Planning Organization

  • University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law

  • Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

  • Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless

  • Washington Interfaith Network (WIN)

  • Whitman-Walker Health Legal Services

Has there been media coverage on this topic?

The following links include some of the published discussions on this topic: