Lady Bird Johnson Act

I often get asked by my clients about The Highway Beautification Act of 1965, the “Lady Bird Act." Though this act was discussed in most high school civics classes many people only remember that it was named for the former First lady and wrongly believe it was to remove all billboards. It actually was one of 150 laws enacted during the Johnson presidency attributed to environmental causes.

In May, 1965, President Johnson convened a Conference on Natural Beauty chaired by Laurence Rockefeller. Of the 15 conference panels, one panel focused on billboard, junkyard and landscaping requirements. The President’s remarks on the final day were: “The other two bills that we are sending will eliminate outdoor advertising signs and junkyards from . . . the Interstate and primary highway system except those areas of commercial and industrial use. Advertising has a vital place in our economy . . .”
The pressure was on to pass the HBA. On October 7, the House voted, but not before Johnson told Members that no Member would be welcome at a White House event that evening unless Lady Bird’s legislation passed. President Johnson signed the HBA of 1965, Public Law 89-285 on October 22, 1965.

Many mistakenly believe the purpose of the HBA was to eliminate billboards. But, in reality, the HBA was a compromise balancing regulation with business and property rights. Many outdoor companies at the time supported the basic ideals of the bill.

Soon after the new Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was enacted, the federal government decided to hold public hearings in 1966 and release draft standards. The biggest disputes concerned zoning and “customary use.” Then, in 1968, the HBA was amended for the first time to allow cities to certify sign controls. In effect, local controls would govern, rather than state edicts. Controls could be stricter or less restrictive. At the same time, state agreements, based on Virginia’s model were being negotiated. Texas was the last state to sign an agreement for size, lighting, and spacing criteria in 1972.

These are the regulations that decide where our billboards are located and how large they are. We often hear from people questioning why the billboard was placed there. 95% of the time it is due to the regulations that where/are in place, for example many parts of the country have billboards on the 660 setback regulations where a billboard had to be built 660 feet away from the highway. Over the years this has done the opposite of what the original goals of "Lady Bird" had in mind.

The idea of the legislation was to have uniform controls on billboards and how to interact with them across the country, at the same time to insure scenic views of our beautiful country. It was never meant to be a bill to take all billboards down and revoke property rights of American citizens.