The 2025 legislative session was a challenging and successful year for fines and fees reform. There were significant wins, continued steps forward, and more bipartisan momentum around our national campaigns. There were also obstacles and temporary losses for our campaigns, as well as the continued proliferation of fines through Automated Traffic Enforcement systems. Taken together, our wins, our losses, and all the work underlying each, teach us valuable lessons and energize our continued fight for a fairer system, while helping us more clearly define a path forward for ourselves and our allies.
Over the next three weeks we will be releasing a four-part series offering an in-depth analysis of each core area of FFJC’s reform efforts including: debt-based driver’s license restrictions, state and local fee elimination, ability-to-pay practices, and automated traffic enforcement. This series will prepare advocates to take on the upcoming legislative session more energized, informed, and better equipped to fight for justice.
First up, Free to Drive: the national campaign to end debt-based driver’s license restrictions.
The Free to Drive campaign made history this year. In the campaign’s sixth year, Ohio became the 26th state to end or significantly reduce debt-based license restrictions with the enactment of H.B. 29, tipping this movement into over half the states. Signed into law by Republican Governor Mike DeWine in January, this bill ends the practice of suspending a driver’s license for failure to pay fines and fees, and requires automatic reinstatement of licenses currently suspended for that reason, lifting nearly 430,000 suspensions impacting more than 170,000 people. The passage of the law followed a multi-year campaign led by a large and diverse coalition of advocates and impacted Ohioans – including Ohio Poverty Law Center, Policy Matters Ohio, ACLU of Ohio, Towards Employment, Justice Action Network, Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, The Buckeye Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and FFJC. Its broad support in a Republican supermajority-controlled legislature demonstrates strong conservative support for the issue. Ohio, like many other states that have been a part of the Free to Drive success story, still has work to do to ensure that failure to appear in court is not grounds for license suspension. Still, the enactment of H.B. 29 is a historic step that creates a strong foundation for FFJC and our allies to push for bolder, more comprehensive reforms in the years ahead.
Massachusetts also made strides, where the Road to Opportunity Act (H. 3662 / S. 2368) to end the practice of suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid traffic, toll, and other fines and fees has gained significant momentum in the state legislature. The bill received a positive reception at a July hearing in the Joint Committee on Transportation, where supporters of the bill included the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, impacted people, legal service providers and advocates. After the hearing, the Boston City Council also passed a resolution backing the Road to Opportunity Act. Like the Ohio bill, this legislation doesn’t completely eliminate the problem of debt-based driver’s licenses, but it would still be a huge step forward. Its broad support speaks to the resonance of this issue in blue as well as red states, and we will continue to work with our Road to Opportunity coalition partners to advocate for its passage in the second year of the current Massachusetts legislative session.
Several other bills were considered across the country that would eliminate debt-based suspensions, including H.B. 980 in North Carolina. Sponsored by Rep. Allen Chesser (R), this bill would end appearance and payment-based license suspensions. While the bill was not advanced this year, we look forward to continuing to support the effort in the next year of North Carolina’s two-year session. Other bills to fully eliminate or curb debt-based license restrictions for unpaid fines and fees were also introduced in Arkansas, Iowa, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Texas, but did not advance this year.
Preventing Rollbacks & Backwards Movement
Not all news was good news this past session. Connecticut lawmakers rejected efforts to eliminate debt-based license suspensions and instead opted to pass compromise legislation that requires individuals to be notified if their license is to be suspended. While the intentions behind this notification requirement were good, the compromise set back reform efforts to fully repeal debt-based suspensions by cementing the requirement that licenses be suspended for failure to pay fines and fees and failure to appear in order to trigger this new notification system. This was a clear example of how incremental progress is not always a step forward, and can sometimes make our ultimate goal even more difficult to achieve. FFJC and our coalition allies remain committed in 2026 to working with the legislature and allies in the state government to continue our advocacy for fully repealing debt-based and appearance-based license restrictions in the state.
Like in recent years, we also saw bills introduced to roll back previous Free to Drive reforms in a few states. For example, Illinois has eliminated all debt-based suspensions through a series of reform bills, the most recent of which passed in 2024. But a bill filed this session sought to resume license suspensions for people who failed to pay fines from automatic traffic enforcement devices. Similarly, in West Virginia, a bill was filed to restore the authority of certain judges to resume suspending licenses for failure to pay fines. And in Mississippi, a similar rollback bill was introduced by the same author who has introduced rollback bills in previous sessions to resume some debt-based license suspensions in the state. Fortunately, this year like other years, no rollback bills passed; in fact, none of these even advanced out of committee. Still, they are a reminder that we must be vigilant in protecting our victories from being overturned. FFJC is dedicated to defending the progress made in the Free to Drive movement by providing technical and strategic assistance to our partners and educating policymakers about the profound positive impact that driver’s license reinstatement has had on people’s lives.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Six years into the Free to Drive Campaign, FFJC has learned from the reforms implemented as a result of the campaign’s work, and we now have a deeper understanding of the scope of reforms that must be enacted in order to maximize the positive impacts of Free to Drive legislation. While more than half of all states have implemented some reforms since the campaign began, many of those states have not implemented all of the reforms necessary to fully achieve the economic benefits of comprehensive reform. Moving forward, the Free to Drive campaign will work to ensure that debt debt-based driver’s license suspension reforms include all of the following elements:
- Eliminate license suspensions and renewal holds for Failure to Pay fines and fees, as well as Failure to Appear at hearings regarding unpaid fines and fees;
- Eliminate vehicle registration suspensions and renewal holds for Failure to Pay fines and fees, as well as Failure to Appear at hearings regarding unpaid fines and fees;
- Ensure that reforms apply retroactively and automatically reinstate currently suspended licenses;
- Waive all applicable reinstatement fees related to the eliminated suspensions;
- Provide notice about lifted suspensions and reinstatements to impacted people;
- Create pathways for resolving underlying fines and fees, including alternatives to payment and debt relief where appropriate; and
- Require collection and publication of data about implementation and impact.
New research supports the idea that comprehensive reforms are most impactful. Researchers examined Free to Drive reforms and found that states with the most comprehensive debt-based driver’s license reforms saw an estimated 2.2% gain in average employment rates, with positive effects growing steadily in the three years following reform. On the other hand, states that passed partial reforms did not see a significant boost in employment. Moreover, additional research has shown that eliminating suspensions for failure to appear, rather than solely focusing reforms on suspensions for failure to pay fines and fees, is critical to reducing racial disparities in suspension rates. Given these research findings, it is clear that we must continue work in states whose previous Free to Drive reforms did not include the comprehensive policy reforms. Only when debt-based suspensions are fully eliminated and people’s licenses are reinstated is the freedom to drive truly restored.
Next year, FFJC will build on the progress already made in Ohio and work with state partners towards the comprehensive elimination of debt-based FTA suspensions in the state. We will continue to advocate for coalition bills we have been working on for several years, such as in Massachusetts and North Carolina, while identifying new opportunities to expand the Free to Drive campaign’s impact. We will begin to work with partners in those states to build coalitions and lay the groundwork for future legislative reform.
We are also prepared for bad bills that either attempt to expand or entrench debt-based suspensions or roll back progress to be filed, just like we saw in Connecticut, Mississippi, and a handful of other states this year. Given the repeated filing of rollback bills over the past few years in several states, we are already organizing to fight alongside our allies to defend the hard-won victories of the Free to Drive campaign and protect the major progress we have made.
Stay tuned for part 2 of our 2025 legislative roundup series: End Justice Fees.