A California legislator recently introduced a bill which would have allowed all the money collected by special license plates touting the state’s rich arts community to go to the arts. But under California law, state environmental agencies get a cut of all vanity plate revenue, and proponents of that system saw the arts plate, which would have been an exception to the rule, as a threat. The bill was killed off last week in committee, leaving California’s state arts board last in the nation in per capita arts spending.