In the News - Interior Design Legislation

Libertarians often disagree with their non-libby friends about the need for government-mandated occupational licensing in fields like medicine. The idea behind such licensing is that the government has a compelling interest in protecting citizens and that licensing actually achieves that end. The evidence is not as cut and dried on the latter point as many people assume, but at least there's enough meat there to warrant a discussion.

Whatever you think about occupational licensing in the context of medicine, there's one field where the government's “compelling interest” — and ability to successfully execute on it – is particularly hard to defend: interior design.

In three U.S. states, government officials are, right now, “protecting” their citizens from bad Feng Shui, misguided uses of prints with plaids, gauche arrangements of bric-a-brac, and other crimes against fabulosity. No one in Florida, for instance, can call himself an interior designer lest he receives the official imprimatur of the state. The Institute for Justice has filed suit to overturn the licensing requirement. Imagine the harm to Floridians if they succeed….

No. I can't imagine any either.

In this field, more than any other, the real reason for most occupational licensing becomes apparent: cartelization to protect incumbent businesses from competition.

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Florida is ground zero in the nationwide battle to cartelize the interior design industry.

A small group of well-funded industry insiders led by the American Society of Interior Designers has been relentless in its pursuit of ever more restrictive laws. Studies have shown that interior design regulations result in higher prices, less variety, and fewer employment opportunities, especially for minorities and older mid-career switchers. On May 26, 2009, the Institute for Justice joined with three interior designers—Eva Locke, Pat Levenson and Barbara Gardner—and the National Federation of Independent Business to file a lawsuit in federal court in Tallahassee challenging Floridas interior design law.

The Institute for Justice is the nations leading legal advocacy group for economic liberty—the right to earn an honest living free from excessive and arbitrary regulation. IJ has successfully challenged anti-competitive interior design laws across the country. Floridas suit promises to be the biggest fight yet in the battle against the interior design cartel, and may finally put an end to restrictive interior design laws nationwide.

Has there been a rash of color-coordination injuries lately?

Are our emergency rooms being overrun by the pitiful victims of horrifying feng shui malpractice?

Is our economy in recession because multibillion-dollar deals fell through when a group of previously eager buyers got a good look at the selling company's headquarters and shuddered at its bad taste?

Why, then, is Florida one of only three states that licenses and regulates the practice of interior design? That's what the Institute for Justice would like to know.

Representatives of the libertarian Washington legal foundation came to town Wednesday to file a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning the law. They contend that looking good is none of the government's business.

'Florida's interior design law was enacted by a small group of industry insiders looking to wall out competition,' the Institute said in announcing plans for a news conference and rally at the Capitol, announcing its lawsuit on Wednesday. 'It has nothing to do with protecting the public and everything to do with protecting a handful of elitist interior designers from fair competition.'

According to the Institute, Florida makes it 'a crime to perform commercial interior design' without a license, or to call yourself an 'interior designer' for residential work. Well.

Even grouchy old conservatives will admit the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Agency for Health Care Administration, Health Department, or Agriculture and Consumer Services folks have their places. You wouldn't want your doctor or lawyer doing it as a hobby (or, if you're a libertarian, you'd at least want the freedom to consult an amateur, knowing what you were getting) so the state has a legitimate role in regulating some trades.

Harbor pilots, for instance. Maybe Google and those GPS thingeys have mapped every square inch of Tampa Bay and Port Everglades, but you still wouldn't want some guy saying, 'Relax, lemme show you how we did it on Exxon Valdez. All ahead full.'

Or beauticians, maybe. The state doesn't have a public-safety stake but a bad one can turn a bad hair day into a bad hair month. And there are all sorts of professions that involve applying chemicals or landscaping or vehicle repair, in which safety or just getting your money's worth and keeping a merchant's thumb off the scale is a legitimate government interest.

But interior design? I'll admit my tastes run more to contemporary vandal than HGTV. My criteria for just the right shelves — excuse me, 'wall unit' — is that when I let go of a book, it doesn't fall to the floor.

Before I was married, I had an orange plaid couch, a beige recliner, whatever carpet came with the apartment and a glass tabletop, under which I'd taped old press passes from big political events. I once bought a house in Atlanta with a driveway bordered by half-buried auto tires, painted white. I started removing them when an effete friend pointed out how gauche they were, but then got distracted and left about half.

For the last 25 years, I've gotten out of car, furniture and house hunting with the simple, accurate dictum that anything she likes is OK with me but whatever I like might not be all right with her. I hired our latest dog, which, incidentally, doesn't match anything.

Aha!, I hear you ask, if the state stops regulating interior design, won't innocent Floridians be easy prey to a bunch of hired duvet-slingers, roaming from town to town and spoiling for a makeover? Mightn't impressionable young people start falling into street gangs that gather in all-weekend raves to watch marathon reruns of 'Designing Women?'

Is that really the sort of America an organization calling itself the Institute for Justice would have us endure?

Government regulation does a lot of things. At best, it protects the public. It also builds up dandy trust funds that legislators can 'sweep' when the budget crashes, like now. But it can also create needless credentialling — protecting incompetent teachers or letting one group of practitioners corner a market, then pull the ladder up after itself.

Personally, watching governments for the last 42 years, I've always felt the answer is not to stop regulating but to regulate smart — regulate what needs it. Until recently, there was a company in New York that filled three floors of a skyscraper, impressing clients with dazzling views of Manhattan and the firm's modern, busy trading floors.

The outfit did a lot of investment consulting in Florida, too. Apparently all the regulatory forces of both states, and the federal government, didn't do too good a job of policing Bernie Madoff's financial transactions.

But at least, down here, any fleecing he did would have to occur in a professionally designed office.

Contact Senior Political Writer Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545 or bcotterell@tallahassee.com.

TALLAHASSEE - Eva Locke, of Delray Beach, graduated from the two-year interior design program at Palm Beach Community College. She has redone a few houses, too.

But don't call her an interior designer. She has to go by another name: decorator.

Locke joined Wednesday with a national conservative group in filing a federal lawsuit to overturn Florida's 21-year-old licensing laws for the interior design business. Florida's laws pertaining to the industry are among the strictest in the nation.

To become a licensed interior designer, Florida law requires two years of classroom training and a four-year apprenticeship. Applicants also must pass an exam offered by a national design institute.

Anyone who doesn't complete the licensing requirements can't use the name 'interior designer' or a similar title, such as 'space planner.'

'I'm very capable of opening my own interior design business,' Locke said. 'There's no reason on Earth for this law to exist. It's there supposedly under the guise of protecting the health, safety and welfare of the public. How are we in any way impacting the welfare of the public?'

Florida's 11-member board of Architecture and Interior Design oversees the interior design industry. Enforcement is contracted to a Tallahassee law firm, Smith, Thompson, Shaw and Manausa.

There are 2,759 interior designers licensed with the state, according to the Department of Business & Professional Regulation.

The Institute for Justice, a conservative legal group based in Arlington, Va., filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court to deregulate interior design in Florida. The state's interior design law, one of only three in the nation, pertains to 'harmless and often purely aesthetic subjects' such as what color carpeting or wallpaper to use, where to hang pictures and how to arrange product displays in electronics stores, the lawsuit states.

Josh Hafenbrack can be reached at jhafenbrack@SunSentinel.com or 850-224-6214.

Several interior designers, the Institute for Justice, and many other organizations spoke out at the capitol Wednesday, May 28th.

The group has filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking 'the Plantiffs' right to earn an honest living and communicate truthfully about interior design services they lawfully perform in Florida.'

'It's absolutely riddled with constitutional problems that prevent people from earning a living in the occupation of their choice and we're going to get rid of that law by challenging in court,' said Clark Neily, the Institute for Justice attorney.

'If people want to get licensed, more power to them. But I don't think the government should be involved. It should be a private thing, handled by a private agency,' said Pat Levenson, an interior design graduate.

Neily explained that Florida's law is by far the most restrictive and aggressively enforced and that only three states in the country even regulate the practice of interior design.