Three years ago, then-Assemblywoman Fiona Ma carried a bill to license interior designers, backed by an industry faction.
Why?
Ma and backers of Assembly Bill 2482 claimed it was to protect consumers from unqualified designers, but it was quite evidently aimed at limiting who could offer design services to potential clients – in effect, a state-enforced monopoly.
It wasn’t the first time such a bill was proposed, and although it failed, it probably won’t be the last. Nor is it, by any means, alone.
Over the years, dozens of professions and occupations have come under state licensure, often, like the interior designers, at the behest of those in the professions.
Some regulation speaks for itself – that of doctors, dentists and other medical practitioners, for example. But others provide, at best, marginal protection to consumers and exist mainly to carve out monopoly markets for those who obtain the licenses.
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