Another smack-down handed to the interior design cartel.
This morning, SB 1521 was heard by the Senate General Government, Consumer and Small Business Protection Committee. We had a substantially larger turnout than the proponents – wasn’t it great that we had so many sign up to testify that time ran out before everyone got a chance? The Committee certainly took notice, which is the reason they rushed through at the end.
The Committee said the bill “needed further study,” a.k.a. “you’re goin’ on a trip to the legislation graveyard.” SB 1521 will not be moving out of Committee this session. While anything (and I do mean anything) can happen in the legislature, the deadline to come out of Committee is tomorrow and it’s not on the agenda. Furthermore, the fiscal impact report has been put on hold — another indication that the bill is dead in the water.
I will continue to monitor this session. The pro-regulation cartel seldom give up, so as implausible as that may seem right at this moment, it’s possible we may see an amended bill next year, but for this session, Oregonians can celebrate victory.
Florida Cartel…are ya dead yet?
As we have been saying all along, if deregulated, everyone in the design community would be able to (1) offer commercial interior design services and (2) submit documents for pulling permits which do not impact structure or lifesafety.
ASID and their puppet coalition, IDAF, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and mobilized their large grassroots to try to counter the fact that deregulation will open new job opportunities in Florida and end the monopoly.
We’re right. They’re wrong. Period.
Take a look at the amended version of HB 5005, as agreed to at conference last Saturday. The bill (amendment language submitted by the NKBA approx. a month ago) now includes definitions of interior design and outlines what is legal to perform. Anyone who can read and comprehend English can see that deregulation will NOT prevent those currently licensed from doing commercial work or from submitting plans (albeit without a seal) for permitting. This is in agreement with the Florida Building Code which states that an architect is only needed if the lifesafety is impacted — even those currently licensed cannot do that type of work now.
The amended bill takes a last whack at ASID’s blatant and deliberate effort to hoodwink legislators. Their argument has no life.
Due to some really bizarre in-house politics in Tallahassee right now, we have no idea how this will be voted on later today.
Interior Design DE-regulation Stays IN Florida Budget!
After meeting last night at 10:15, this morning at 10:00 and this afternoon at 2:00, the negotiations between Sen. Alexander and Rep. Grimsley are over. They have reached a budget agreement and (drum roll, please)….
The budget bill now has a 72 hour “cooling off” period, then will be on legislators’ desks next Tuesday, for a final vote on Friday (last day of session) to confirm the budget which has now been informally agreed to by both Senate and House.
The Cartel will no doubt do everything they can to make a desperate, final attempt to get interior designers removed and save their monopoly stranglehold, but that’s highly unlikely at this juncture, as the budget should be a straight up-or-down vote, and all the “horse trading” has already been done. Still, you just never know what can happen in the legislature, so put that champagne on ice, but don’t crack it open just yet. We’ll give you the thumbs up when all hurdles have been passed.
For all intents and purposes, it sure does look like the Good Guys have won! Thanks for being part of our team effort — IDPC has been working on getting rid of this law since 2008, and if you have not already done so, this would be an ideal time to support our work.
I think I’m going to take the rest of the weekend off.
ASID. . . or SNL? Press conference bombs!
That was typical of the many comments we received regarding ASID’s flop-of-a-press-conference held in Tallahassee yesterday. Here is a summary of the debacle.
In fact, the people in the conference area never even bothered to stop talking – there was so much ambient noise, one could barely hear what was being said.
Well, that would have been a blessing in disguise for the Cartel if not for the streaming video. . .
Don Davis, ASID’s national lobbyist, led the cache of Cartel speakers looking very ill at ease – probably because the audience just kept talking right over him. In his comments, he emphasized the same falsehoods that were publicized by ASID earlier in the week.
The first was the claim that interior design regulation regulation in Florida is voluntary and that anyone who would like to do interior design may do so. This is not true; Florida is one of only three states that have enacted a state-mandated regulatory scheme which prohibits unlicensed individuals from practicing commercial interior design. Mr. Davis’ deliberately misleading statement and additional ASID mistruths have been thoroughly, factually, and empirically debunked in detail here.
My colleague, Clark Neily says, “If Florida’s law is indeed voluntary, that will come as a huge surprise to IJ client Barbara Gardner and hundreds of others like her who received this letter from the BOAID’s prosecuting attorney, David Minacci, advising that it is illegal to offer “interior design” and “commercial design” services in Florida and demanding that they sign an affidavit in which they agree to “refrain from offering interior design and commercial design services” without a license and swear under oath that “interior design and commercial design services have not been provided . . . without proper licensure.” I further assume that Mr. Minacci and members of the BOAID will be investigated for their criminal conduct in making those misrepresentations to hundreds of people and businesses under color of law.
Mr. Davis went on to proclaim that if deregulation occurs, no one but architects would be able to practice interior design in a commercial setting or be able to pull permits for their projects. ASID continues to perpetrate this scare tactic even after it has been totally discredited here and here.
Mr. Davis’ claim that deregulation would create a monopoly for architects is absurd.
No clear-thinking legislator is going to be hoodwinked by ASID’s bait-and-switch tactics which falsely and unsuccessfully try to portray the Cartel as the victims in a monopoly scheme. To the contrary, what Florida has now is a state-sanctioned monopoly under which a mere 2,560 state-licensed interior designers are allowed to work in commercial spaces. Eliminating Florida’s interior design law will enable consumers to hire whomever they wish and require interior designers to compete on a level playing field in Florida the way they do in the 47 states that do not regulate interior design. Talented interior designers are flourishing in those states, as they will when Florida’s blatantly anti-competitive interior design law is repealed.
Alison Levy, a spokesperson for IIDA, claimed that deregulation would cost Florida consumers $51 million and result in layoffs because registered interior designers would not be able to offer commercial interior design services; however, that number appears to have been made up as she supplied not single statistic, documentation, or any verification whatsoever to support the assertion. More importantly, it’s just not true. Everything registered interior designers are doing today, they will be able to do if deregulated. They will be able to practice commercial design and they will be able to submit plans (albeit without a seal, which is not necessary for non-lifesafety work under the Florida Building Code Guidebook). Deregulation would create, not destroy, jobs, so no layoffs would occur. Whether or not the current licensed designers actually get/keep the commercial work once fair competition is allowed will depend solely on the merit of work produced, as in the 47 non-regulated states.
Ms. Levy claimed that Florida is currently not a regulated state. This is a serious misrepresentation of Statues 481which could have the chilling effect of leading to unlicensed practice resulting in additional disciplinary actions (in addition to the 600+ individuals who were victims of the “witch hunt”) at the hands of the BOAID’s ruthless prosecution firm.
Walter Dartland, a former employee in the Attorney General’s office was (unintentionally) hilarious! He talked in general about consumer issues (which of course, interior design is not). He indicated that interior designers are the functional equivalent of lawyers and should be regulated accordingly. Hmmm. I guess he didn’t hear Don Davis’ statement that they’re not regulated… He also railed against deregulation of movers and auto repair shops as the top recipient of consumer complaints. That’s it. Did ASID forget to tell Mr. Dartland the press conference was supposed to be about interior design?
Representative Van Zandt was undoubtedly the highlight of the press conference, and did the most to damage the credibility of the Cartel’s agenda to remove interior designers from the deregulation bill.
He went on and on about how the current regulated interior designers protect public safety, but gave no proof whatsoever – that’s because there is none, as proved here and here.
He stated there are 883 regulated firms with 11,000 employees, affecting another 46,000 jobs for a total loss of 60,000 jobs if deregulated. Again, no proof was offered. The truth is that those 60,000 jobs would still be viable, and in addition, hundreds of thousands more would be created by deregulation!
With no clear coordinated talking points, and each bumbling speaker contradicting the other, as amusing as it was for the Freedom Movement, the press conference had to be excruciatingly painful for the Cartel to watch.
On Tuesday, April 26, it was reported that the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the International Interior Designers Association (IIDA) sent a joint letter to President Haridopolos and Speaker Cannon regarding the proposal to repealFlorida’s interior design law. The letter is largely fictitious and, as usual, provides no supporting data or references.
Response: This claim is demonstrably false and contradicts ASID’s own statements in federal court.
Florida Statute § 481.223(1)(a) states that a person may not “[p]ractice interior design unless the person is a registered interior designer . . . .” Violation of that provision is a crime punishable by up to one year in prison.
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s website has a page that asks “What services require a state of Florida license? Interior Designers.” It goes on to explain that “If you are going to hire someone to design the interior of a commercial structure he/she needs to be licensed.
Response: This claim is grossly misleading because it fails to provide necessary context.
Under current Florida law, interior designers are not authorized to sign and seal construction documents that affect structural, mechanical, ingress/egress, or other “lifesafety” systems. Construction documents that do not affect lifesafety systems do not have to be sealed by an architect, engineer, or other building professional and may be submitted by non-licensed persons at the discretion of local building officials.
Notably absent is any context or support for the tacit assertion that the livelihoods of commercial designers depend significantly on their ability to stamp and seal construction documents. In reality, interior designers are rarely called upon to sign and seal construction documents for permitting purposes on commercial projects.
Any concerns about the ability of interior designers to sign and seal construction documents can easily be addressed by other means than occupational licensure. Such language has been provided to the Legislature and could easily be implemented with support from ASID and IIDA, which they have so far withheld, presumably because their true concern is not signing and sealing construction documents but maintaining their government-backed monopoly on commercial design services inFlorida.
Response: These figures appear to be entirely made up.
In contrast, a study performed by economists at KenyonCollegecalled Designed to Exclude concluded that interior design regulations drive up prices, limit choices for consumers and disproportionately exclude minorities and older, mid-career switchers from the interior design field.
The number of state-licensed interior designers inFloridahas been steadily diminishing; the current figure provided by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation is 2,560 active registrations out of more than 5,800 that have been issued since 1994. The Department reports that approximately 60% of those 2,560 interior designers were grandfathered-in and do not possess the requisite statutory credentials for licensing.
Eliminating unnecessary statutory prerequisites for practicing interior design—prerequisites that most state-licensed interior designers do not even possess themselves—will expand opportunities and enable all interior designers to compete on a level playing field, just as they do in the 47 states that do not license the practice of interior design.
The letter submitted by ASID and IIDA to President Haridopolis and Speaker Cannon contains demonstrable falsehoods and unsupported assertions. We hope and expect that these groups will be asked to explain their misrepresentations and document their assertions and that their credibility will be judged according to the response they give—or fail to give.
Unlicensed designers ARE insurable..even in Florida!
Another nail in the Florida Cartel’s coffin!
As you know, one of the FL cartel’s many scare tactics has been their assertion that only licensed designers are insurable. Well, this too has been disproved – see letter from Suncoast Insurance.
Interior design licensure protects the public. Disproved here and here.
Only architects will be able to practice commercial design. Disproved here and here.
Deregulation will cause the current licensed designers to lose work. Truth — only if their work is inferior (here).
The current law in Florida is a voluntary licensing program – no one is forced to become licensed. Disproved here.
Regulation creates jobs (no — it restricts competition; deregulation opens new job opportunities).
26 states believe the safety their residents requires that interior designers be regulated. Disproved by Institute for Justice here.
Regulation offers consumers more choices (wrong… the Federal Trade Commission concluded that regulation raises consumer costs and provides fewer choices.
Students will not be able to pay off their school loans (right now, they can only work for the 2,500 licensed interior designers; if deregulated, they will be able to work for many thousands of other designers or start their own business. The result is more opportunities for employment/entrepreneurship will facilitate paying off school loans faster).
As long as ASID/IDAF continue to make their blatantly false statements, IDPC will be right there to hammer out the TRUTH!
Please support our crusade to pound out anti-competitive interior design regulations!