California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills into law at Jay Leno's Burbank garage, one exempting certain collector cars from smog checks, the other creating a specialty lowrider license plate, in a move that gives the state's car enthusiasts a rare policy win after years of regulatory friction.
Newsom put his signature on Senate Bill 1392, dubbed "Jay Leno's Law," and Assembly Bill 2541 on September 16, 2026, at a ceremony staged inside the legendary comedian's famous car collection. SB 1392 carves out a new smog exemption for collector vehicles built between 1976 and 1985, provided they are insured as collector cars or driven fewer than 1,000 miles per year. The law takes effect January 1, 2028.
AB 2541, authored by Assemblymember Mark González, a Democrat from Los Angeles, creates a specialty license plate honoring lowrider heritage. Together, the two bills represent California's latest attempt to soften a relationship with car owners that the state itself made adversarial through decades of fines, restrictions, and outright bans on local cruising clubs.
That last point deserves emphasis. California spent years punishing the very car culture it now wants credit for celebrating. The state imposed fines on classic car drivers, restricted lowered vehicles, and targeted the lowrider community with policing rather than recognition. Only in the last few years, after approving Assembly Bill 434, which legalized lowrider cruising and stripped outdated restrictions from the books, has Sacramento begun reversing course.
Jay Leno, one of the most prominent car collectors in the country, first threw his weight behind the smog-exemption push several years ago. The effort stalled and dragged until 2026, when it finally cleared the legislature. Leno credited Newsom with sticking with the bill through its long path to passage.
USA TODAY reported Leno's statement praising the governor's persistence:
"The Governor stuck with this legislation through the last couple of years to preserve California's classic car heritage, and that's rare. The car community has been waiting on this for a long time, and they notice when someone follows through."
That praise from Leno is notable precisely because California's regulatory apparatus has been so hostile to car enthusiasts for so long. Owners of vehicles from the late 1970s and early 1980s, cars now four and five decades old, have been forced to pass the same emissions tests as modern daily drivers, even when those classics spend most of their lives parked in garages. SB 1392 finally draws a line: if you insure the car as a collector vehicle or keep it under 1,000 miles a year, the state will leave you alone on smog.
Newsom, who has been positioning himself on the national stage ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run, framed the signings as a cultural preservation effort. The governor has drawn scrutiny for his media appearances and political hedging, but on this issue he chose a setting, Leno's garage, designed to project bipartisan appeal.
Newsom issued a statement tying both bills to California's identity:
"These bills protect a treasured part of California culture, giving car owners a way to preserve these pieces of history for generations to come. The Golden State is made for classic-car lovers, and our lowriders are timeless masterpieces that connect art, activism, and cultural identity throughout our state."
AB 2541's lowrider license plate carries a different weight. Assemblymember González, who authored the bill, cast it as overdue recognition of a community that Sacramento had long treated as a nuisance rather than a cultural force.
González said in a statement to USA TODAY:
"Lowriding is more than a car; it is cultura, it is art, it's family, and it is a powerful expression of Chicano and Latino pride. For generations, our communities have used lowriders to tell our stories, celebrate our heritage, and create something beautiful out of the streets we call home. Yet too often, lowriders were treated as a problem to be policed instead of a culture to be celebrated."
González's framing is straightforward: the state spent years cracking down on lowrider culture, and a specialty plate is one small step toward reversing that posture. Whether a license plate amounts to meaningful policy change or just symbolic politics is a fair question. The bill's details, cost, plate design, rollout timeline, were not specified in the reporting.
The broader pattern in Sacramento is worth watching. Newsom has broken with his own party on certain cultural issues when the political winds shifted, and his willingness to sign car-culture bills fits a governor who reads polls carefully and adjusts.
For all the ceremony in Leno's garage, significant details remain unclear. SB 1392 does not take effect until January 1, 2028, and the reporting does not identify which state agency will administer the new exemption or how the "insured as collector vehicles" standard will be defined and enforced. Owners of qualifying cars will want to know whether their insurer's classification alone is enough, or whether the state will impose additional paperwork.
On AB 2541, the same gaps apply. No cost for the specialty plate was mentioned. No design process was described. No timeline for availability was given. The bill is law, but the plate does not yet exist in any tangible form.
There is also no public record in the reporting of any opposition votes or dissenting statements on either bill. That absence raises its own question: did the bills pass unanimously, or were objections simply not covered? In a state that regulates vehicle emissions more aggressively than any other, a smog exemption for an entire decade of cars is not a trivial carve-out. The environmental lobby's silence, or at least its absence from the reporting, is conspicuous.
Newsom's broader record in California continues to generate controversy well beyond car policy. His judicial appointments have drawn sharp criticism, including a case involving a Newsom-appointed judge who released an illegal immigrant one day before the man allegedly killed a California retiree.
And as Newsom eyes a potential White House bid, his public pledges about 2028 have added another layer of political calculation to everything he does, including photo-op bill signings at celebrity garages.
Credit where it is due: SB 1392 is a genuine deregulatory step for classic car owners in a state that rarely deregulates anything. Collectors who have kept 1976-to-1985 vehicles alive, often at considerable personal expense, will finally get relief from smog requirements that made little practical sense for cars driven a few hundred miles a year.
Leno deserves recognition for pushing the effort when Sacramento had no interest in listening. The car community lobbied for this for years. The fact that it took a celebrity's involvement to move a common-sense exemption through the California legislature says more about the state's priorities than any governor's press release.
When a state has to pass three separate bills just to stop punishing people for driving classic cars and lowriders, the problem was never the cars. It was the government.
