Ohio Legislature Passes Bill Ending Driver's License Suspensions for Court Debts 

Media investigations found over 3 million active license suspensions in the state.

Ohio may soon reinstate the driver's licenses of hundreds of thousands of residents who lost the ability to drive because of unpaid court debts. The state General Assembly passed a bipartisan bill to end the practice last month.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to sign into law House Bill 29. The bill would, among other provisions, end the state's practice of suspending driver's licenses for unpaid court fines and minor drug offenses; retroactively reinstate licenses previously suspended for those reasons; allow poor residents to enter into payment plans; and give a person who is in default on child support payments the opportunity to present evidence that suspending their license would prevent them from making future payments.

Ohio is currently one of over 20 states, according to the Fines and Fees Justice Center, that suspend licenses for court debts, but, as in many other states in recent years, criminal justice advocates convinced the legislature that debt-based license suspensions are unfair and illogical. The practice deprives people of transportation, which makes it harder to hold down a job and pay off their debts, or leads them to drive to work on a suspended license and risk accruing more fines.

"House Bill 29 is a monumental bill that will benefit Ohio workers, employers, and communities," said Lauren Krisai, executive director of the Justice Action Network, which advocated in favor of the legislation. "It will change hundreds of thousands of lives."

An investigation by The Marshall Project and WEWS News 5 published in 2023 found the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles issued nearly 200,000 new license suspensions the previous year for failing to pay court fines, missing child support payments, or other debt-related reasons. The news organizations reported there were over 3 million active license suspensions as of September 2022 in Ohio.

The bill is also notable because it passed by large bipartisan margins at a time when the consensus on criminal justice reform has been crumbling in some other states. The final version of the bill was unanimously approved in the Ohio Senate and passed the Ohio House by a vote of 84–6.

"The overwhelming amount of support this bill received from the General Assembly proves that bold, bipartisan criminal justice reform centered on improving workforce participation and economic outcomes is popular on both sides of the aisle," Krisai says.

According to the Fines and Fees Justice Center, in 2023 New Mexico became the 24th state to pass some form of legislation ending or limiting the practice in the past five years. If Gov. DeWine signs H.B. 29, Ohio would be the 25th.

Where state legislatures have refused to act, federal courts have stepped in, especially when states fail to consider whether someone is too poor to afford a fine in the first place.

In 2018, a federal judge in Michigan enjoined the practice when it's applied to the very poor, ruling that suspending licenses without determining the debtors' ability to pay likely violates due process. And in 2017, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee reinstated the licenses of two residents in what may have been the first ruling of its kind. 

"Taking an individual's driver's license away to try to make her more likely to pay a fine is not using a shotgun to do the job of a rifle: it is using a shotgun to treat a broken arm," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger.