- New report estimates state and national economic costs of occupational licensing [Morris Kleiner and Evgeny Vorotnikov, Institute for Justice] Reform efforts proceed at both state and federal levels [Angela Erickson, Cato Policy Report] Another study: licensing reduces labor supply significantly [Peter Blair and Bobby Chung, NBER]
- Cosmetology schools serve as lobbying force behind high prerequisites before newcomers can practice in field [Meredith Kolodner and Sarah Butrymowicz, New York Times]
- “Occupational Licensing and Accountant Quality: Evidence from the 150-Hour Rule” [John M. Barrios, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy]
- “At public meeting, hydrogeologist criticizes Albuquerque, N.M.-based water district for fortifying ditch roads with rock rubble. District employee complains to the state professional engineer board, claiming that hydrogeologist’s critique amounted to the unlicensed practice of engineering. Correct, says the board. New Mexico Court of Appeals (2013): Actually, the First Amendment is pretty clear that state agencies can’t punish folks for talking at public meetings without a license. Tenth Circuit (2018): Sadly, though, the hydrogeologist is now time-barred from seeking damages over this contretemps.” [John K. Ross, Short Circuit on Turner v. Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, see related Oregon case of Mats Järlström covered earlier here and here, and an update] On the other hand, New Mexico making genuine progress on licensing thanks to executive order signed by outgoing Gov. Susana Martinez [Cato podcast with Paul Gessing]
- Opening up new practitioner categories could help reach underserved dentistry markets [Cato podcast with Sal Nuzzo] Letting the feds get involved in licensing issues is fraught with risk [Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb Brown and Lee McGrath]
- 1758 pamphlet on Edinburgh barbers’ exclusive right to cut hair sheds light on issues that are still with us [Daniel Klein]
Posts Tagged ‘occupational licensure’
November 21 roundup
- “A Decade After Realizing It Can’t Threaten A Critic Online, UCLA Returns To Threaten A Critic Online” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Adam Steinbaugh, FIRE]
- “D.C. Bureaucrats Are Trying to Make Parents Get a License to Let Children Play Together” [Kerry McDonald, FEE; Karin Lips, Washington Post; Lenore Skenazy, Reason]
- “If you were ripped off by a couple of companies that enrolled consumers in membership-rewards programs without their consent, congratulations, you’re entitled to a $20 credit to buy more stuff from them. Ninth Circuit: Your class counsel, however, is probably not entitled to $8.7 million in attorney’s fees for winning you a coupon.” [John Kenneth Ross, IJ “Short Circuit” on In Re EasySaver Rewards Litigation]
- Congestion highway pricing and the “Lexus Lanes” epithet, supervised injection facilities, single payer in one state and more in my new Maryland roundup at Free State Notes;
- Chain that touched off public outrage stands to gain by reaction: “Licensing pet groomers won’t help pets. It will hurt low-income groomers.” [Shoshana Weissman and Jesse Kelley, R Street]
- “A Case for an Executive Order to Rein in Guidance Documents and other ‘Regulatory Dark Matter'” [Clyde Wayne Crews, CEI]
September 27 roundup
- It works if your court is in Maine: “Motion to Continue Because of Moose Attack” [Lowering the Bar]
- “John Bolton is Right About the International Criminal Court” [Jeremy Rabkin, Weekly Standard, earlier]
- No kidding. “Unintended Impact: Detroit Crackdown on Landlords Could Boost Rents” [Deadline Detroit; Violet Ikonomova, Metro Times]
- Advocacy groups “were focused on food deserts ‘because access was a social justice issue. It wasn’t based on evidence because there wasn’t any evidence.'” [Tamar Haspel, Washington Post]
- “Good moral character” prerequisites for holding licenses are vague and subjective even in ordinary times, and should not be pressed into surrogate use against political foes [Jonathan Haggerty and C. Jarrett Dieterle, R Street Institute]
- California fisheries and Chevron deference: “An Otter Travesty by the Administrative State” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato cert amicus petition in California Sea Urchin Commission v. Combs]
Mississippi: drawing digital lines on satellite map requires surveyor’s license
The state of Mississippi insists that a company called Vizaline, by selling a program that uses satellite imagery to translate “metes and bounds” language into polygonal lines on a map, is practicing land surveying without a license, and should be made to shut down and refund all money it has earned in the state. Attorneys from the Institute for Justice say that virtual land measurement is not only not part of an occupation subject to licensure, but is a form of expression and communication and subject to First Amendment protections. [Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica]
Schools roundup
- Even as Washington, D.C. saddles child-care providers with new degree requirement, it leaves unenforced some of its certification rules for public school teachers [David Boaz, earlier here, etc.]
- Mayor de Blasio plans to overhaul admission to NYC’s elite high schools. Watch out [Lisa Schiffren, New York Post]
- On the Banks of Plumb Crazy: American Library Association removes Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from children’s-book award [AP/The Guardian]
- Max Eden investigation of death at a NYC school [The 74 Million] Eden and Seth Barron podcast on school shootings and discipline policy [City Journal]
- “The Transgender Bathroom Wars Continue in State Court” [Gail Heriot]
- Oklahoma, West Virginia, Arizona and on: are teacher uprisings justified? [Neal McCluskey and Caleb Brown]
Labor and employment roundup
- Sens. Marco Rubio, Elizabeth Warren team up on federal bill to curb practice of yanking occupational licenses over unpaid student debt [Eric Boehm] “Pennsylvania’s Governor Calls for Abolishing 13 Occupational Licenses” [same] Licensing reform generally hasn’t been a partisan battle, but party-line vote in California legislative committee has derailed one promising bill [same] Nebraska gets out in front on the issue with a bill sponsored by libertarian state senator Laura Ebke [Platte Institute] “You Shouldn’t Need a License to Braid Hair” [Ilya Shapiro and Aaron Barnes on Cato amicus brief in Niang v. Tomblinson]
- Alone among states, California requires a “mandatory mediation and conciliation process” for agricultural employers. Arbitrary and open to constitutional challenge [Ilya Shapiro and Reilly Stephens on Cato amicus brief for California Supreme Court certiorari in Gerewan Farming Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Board]
- “Lawsuits that compel sharing economy companies to treat their contractors as full-fledged employees will only forestall the inevitable transition towards a Tomorrow 3.0 economy.” [Pamela Hobart, Libertarianism.org reviewing Michael Munger’s new book “Tomorrow 3.0”] Plaintiffs in California Supreme Court ruling: “Uber Drivers Just Killed All the Parts of the Job They Supposedly Liked the Most” [Coyote]
- Or maybe the gig economy isn’t taking over after all [Ben Casselman, New York Times; Ben Gitis and Will Rinehart, American Action Forum, on new Bureau of Labor Statistics survey finding that prevalence of contingent work has declined, not risen, since 2005]
- “Original Meaning Should Decide Arbitration Act Case on Independent Contractors” [Andrew Grossman and Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus in Supreme Court case of New Prime v. Oliviera]
- “Disability rates among working-age adults are shaped by race, place, and education” [Martha Ross and Nicole Bateman, Brookings]
Constitutional law roundup
- “Allegation: Maplewood, Mo. officials trap low-income motorists in a repeated cycle of arrests and jailing over traffic violations by requiring them to pay fines and bonds irrespective of their ability to pay. A Fourteenth Amendment violation? The district court did not err, says the Eighth Circuit, in allowing the case to proceed.” [John Kenneth Ross, IJ “Short Circuit” on Webb v. City of Maplewood]
- “Does the Excessive Fines Clause Apply to the States? You’d think we’d know that by now — but the Supreme Court hasn’t spoken to this.” [Eugene Volokh]
- “SCOTUS Bingo: The Slaughterhouse Cases” [Sheldon Gilbert on Heritage “SCOTUS 101” podcast with Elizabeth Slattery and Tiffany Bates; Eighth Circuit occupational licensure case]
- Should committing a crime unrelated to guns or violence lead to lifetime forfeiture of gun rights? [Ilya Shapiro and Matt Larosiere on Cato amicus brief in Kanter v. Sessions, Seventh Circuit]
- “A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism,” Federalist Society podcast with Michael McConnell and Ilan Wurman discussing Wurman’s new book]
- A new and better Article V? [proposal for an “amendment amendment“]
“Local Governments and Occupational Licensing Absurdity”
“The proliferation of state licensing requirements is already bad enough. There’s no need for cities to pile their own mandates on.” Detroit, which requires licenses for at least 60 occupations, is among the worst offenders. [C. Jarrett Dieterle, Governing]
Also in Michigan: “Shampooing Hair And Piloting Commercial Airliners Require Same Number Of Training Hours In Michigan” [Michigan Capitol Confidential]
Occupational licensure reform advances
“The Latest On Occupational Licensing Reform: At the federal level and in the state of Michigan, there have been encouraging moves toward market liberalization.” [Thomas A. Hemphill and Jarrett Skorup, Cato Regulation mag] Related: George Leef, Regulation (reviewing “Bottleneckers” by William Mellor and Dick M. Carpenter II). “Florida Lawmakers Are Fast-Tracking Licensing Reforms” [Boehm] “But sadly Elias Zarate is no closer to being a barber, because he still doesn’t have a high school diploma. And, yes, that matters for some reason.” [same] “Inside the Insane Battle Over Arizona’s Blow-Dry Licensing Bill” [same] “Tennessee has imposed nearly $100K in fines for unlicensed hair braiding since 2009” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] Licensing bars on applicants with criminal histories, often related hardly at all to the risks of crime in licensed occupations, make re-entry of offenders harder [Arthur Rizer and Shoshana Weissmann, The Blaze] A Twitter thread on board certification of music therapists, which are licensed in 10 states [Shoshana Weissmann et al.] Study: “optician licensing appears to be reducing consumer welfare by raising the earnings of opticians without enhancing the quality of services delivered to consumers.” [Edward J Timmons and Anna Mills, Eastern Economic Journal]
Schools and childhood roundup
- Chicago mayor not the only one pushing this awful idea: New Mexico lawmakers propose requiring high school grads to apply to college or file alternate life plan [Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal]
- “New York’s Bid to Control Religious Schools” [Avi Schick, WSJ/Yeshiva World]
- “Couple’s three girls were taken away after Walmart reported innocent bath time photos” [Derek Hawkins, WaPo/The State, Jacob Sullum, Reason]
- Also soliciting public comment: “Education Department delays Obama rule encouraging racial quotas in special ed” [Jerome Woehrle, Liberty Unyielding; Erica L. Green, New York Times; Hans Bader/CEI last fall] “Civil Rights Commission Takes on Issue of Minorities in Special Education” [Christina Samuels, EdWeek] And: “Federal Special Education Law and State School Choice Programs” [Tim Keller and Nat Malkus, Federalist Society]
- New from Cato, edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore: “Critics of State Education: A Reader.”
- “Everybody Hates DC’s Proposal Forcing Daycare Workers to Get College Degrees” [Eric Boehm, Reason, earlier here and here]