Radley Balko: Artificial Standards
By Radley Balko
(Radley Balko is a senior editor for Reason magazine and maintains at Web log at TheAgitator.com.) The excerpt below was taken off from the foxnews.com website)
Earlier this month, a bullying, cartel-like professional group met in New Orleans for its annual conference. One of the top items on the agenda was to discus new lobbying strategies to scare off the lowly folks who attempt to enter this particular profession without first paying the proper deference and dues to the industry’s old guard. I’m speaking of course of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID).
I’m not kidding.
Did you know that in Nevada it is illegal to move a large piece of furniture for someone else under the title of “interior designer”? In fact, 21 states and the District of Columbia have enacted “titling” regulations or registration requirements for people who want to arrange other people’s furniture for a fee.
Under titling laws, you can still design someone else’s house for payment, you just aren’t permitted to advertise yourself as an “interior designer,” which of course effectively kills any chance of starting an actual business.
But, titling laws are just a foot in the door.
In a 2006 report, the indispensable organization the Institute for Justice explained that ASID pushes for titling requirements only “as a first step toward lobbying for far more restrictive licensing laws.”
A Forbes article in February reported that in some states, ASID is lobbying for states to pass laws stating that interior decorating can only be done by someone with a “four-year college degree,” “a two-year apprenticeship,” and who pays “a $720 fee to take an exam that only 49 percent now pass.” IJ reports that of the four states that now require full-blown licensing for interior design, “three began with titling laws that, after industry pressure, evolved into licensing.”
But it isn’t just the pillow tossers (they hate it when you call them that).
According to a recent study from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the professional florist’s lobby (yes, there is one) has succeeded in enacting legislation in Louisiana that makes it illegal “for anybody to arrange two or more types of flowers without passing a largely subjective state licensing exam.” The failure rate for the florist’s exam is actually higher than that of the state bar exam. The CEI study warns that in theory, “a child could face a fine for picking a bouquet of flowers and selling it at a roadside stand.”
The Economist reports that in Texas, veterinary groups are pushing to require “horse floaters” to obtain a veterinarian’s license. Floaters specialize in filing down the teeth of horses. That’s all they do. Requiring a vet’s license would mean spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years in vet school. In other words, it would put floaters out of business. But that’s the point — more tooth-filing fees for the state’s veterinarians.
This sort of cartelish behavior is everywhere.
The funeral home industry is notorious for it. As are taxi and limousine services. IJ has been successful defeating laws in several states that would require African-American hair-braiders to obtain a beautician’s license, which generally means thousands of dollars on cosmotology school, and accumulating hundreds of hours of training they don’t need.
If you want to hang wallpaper in Georgia, you’ll first need a state license. (more…)
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