The Golden State’s reputation for its business climate is a bit tarnished. Numerous reports note how California’s regulations make starting a business a daunting challenge, let alone keeping one profitable. Nevertheless, California remains the home to the tech sector, entertainment industry, and an agricultural economy that feeds the country. But to maintain that status, it’s important to move in the right direction on new regulations, such as licensing interior designers.
We often take for granted that the building we work in is safe, or that our dentist is proficient. Fortunately, we have a measure of assurance of public protection because the State of California licenses architects, dentists and over 3.4 million practitioners in various trades and professions through 36 boards and bureaus under the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Occupational licensing serves to protect the public health, safety, and welfare in a wide range of sectors of the economy. But if government is to step its sizable foot into the marketplace, it needs to be for a highly compelling reason and there is only one such rationale: consumer protection. The threat of irreparable harm is the standard legislatures apply to determine whether to regulate a profession or trade. The California Legislature is firmly committed to consumer protection and has embedded “consumers first” language into the statutes authorizing licensure.
The need to regulate is often self-evident. Would you really want an unlicensed surgeon to perform a procedure? Or are you comfortable working with an attorney or accountant who has not demonstrated a basic level of competence? Most definitely not, as the risk is too great, and there could be irreparable harm.
But not all professions and trades are created equal. Some have minimal requirements that are commensurate with the risk posed to the public from the services of such licensees. Others are highly rigorous to ensure the safety of consumers, particularly in the medical profession.
Other regulatory schemes are questionable and raise legitimate questions on whether the standards exist to protect to pubic or create an expensive guild. A group of corporate interior designers (International Association of Interior Designers), for example, is making another effort to establish a state board and license in California. AB 1796 (Jackson) creates both a “scope of practice” and restricts use of “professional interior designer” as a title.
The bill will create a small cadre (as few as 100) of corporate interior designers that would control the market. License fees, based upon data from the Assembly Appropriations Committee, would be at least $2,700, depending on how many designers can afford to shut down their practice, take an onerous national exam, and then a California Supplemental Examination.
What’s worse is that this is being done even though California already has a credential for interior designers via a certification from a nonprofit that is designated in state law, the California Council for Interior Design Certification (CCIDC). The certification is voluntary, and has proven efficient and effective. AB 1796 is both redundant and wasteful, and would eliminate CCIDC to facilitate the monopoly.
This heavy-handed power grab will also jeopardize career opportunities for college graduates by establishing excessively rigorous and expensive standards. And by creating the monopoly for large corporate designers, small, woman-owned businesses, which make up the vast majority of the profession, will be absolutely crushed unless they meet the new restrictive standards. To make matters worse, your tax dollars or license fees will be used to underwrite the launch of this protectionist system.
The bill also criminalizes interior design. Any certified interior designers who inadvertently violate AB 1796’s provisions would be subject to a citation from the State of California, charged as a misdemeanor, and with a penalty of up to $5,000 per count.
Only two states actually license and regulate interior designers (Nevada and Louisiana) because the threat to consumers is minimal, if that. Those states have not revoked the license of an interior designer in over 10 years, further demonstrating the lack of consumer harm. Similarly, CCIDC has only received eight complaints over that same 10 years. There is a reason no states have adopted a practice act like AB 1796 envisions since Nevada and Louisiana did in the 1990s. It’s simply not in the public interest, and there is no data to support the use of state government to create a monopoly.
Legislation like AB 1796 has been attempted and failed in California in 2012, 2008, and 1999. Reasonable minds can differ on regulations: one person’s “red tape” can be another’s safety measure to avoid significant harm. But with interior designers the evidence is clear. AB 1796 will set up a wasteful, expensive regulatory scheme and put most of California’s 2,000 certified interior designers out of work. California deserves better and the Legislature should defeat AB 1796.
Doug McCauley is California’s 24th Real Estate Commissioner (ret.), appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom, and served as Executive Officer for the California Architects Board (2001-2018). He is an occupational licensing consultant for certified interior designers and other professions.