For at least the third year in a row, we have a bill designed to keep us free from the scourge of unregistered interior designers. This year it’s Senate Bill 490 authored by Sen. Kruse:
Provides that a person: (1) may not use the title “registered interior designer” or any title designation sign, card, or device indicating the person is a registered interior designer unless the person has a certificate of registration; and (2) is ineligible for registration if the person has a civil judgment for negligence, recklessness, willful misconduct, or another breach of a standard of care in the practice of interior design entered against the person.
Last year, it was HB 1063-2006, where it was authored by Reps. Hinkle, Micon, and Torr and defeated by a vote of 30 to 68, and the year before, it was HB 1434-2005 authored by Reps. Hinkle, Alderman, Dickinson, and Micon. Apparently in 2005, it never got a vote on Third Reading.
I guess if you try long enough, you can get just about anything passed. Heck, even Daylight Saving Time got passed after 30 years of trying (making it now, officially, time to “move on” according to its proponents.) So why not interior designers?
I have absolutely no evidence for this, but my suspicion is that the folks pushing for this are associated with the National Council for Interior Design Qualification and/or the Architectural Registration Exam. A person has to have passed one of their exams in order to “register.”
Which brings me to a minor quibble. The requirement that an interior designer pass an exam makes this look a lot more like a “license” or a “certification” than a registration. Probably a certification. “Registration” tends to just mean having your name written down somewhere and perhaps paying a fee, but the activity is not really restricted otherwise and there are no real limiting qualifications required. “Licensure” tends to mean that a certain activity is restricted unless you meet the qualifications. “Certification” tends to restrict use of a name (in this case, “registered interior designer”) unless one has certain proven qualifications. But, the activity itself is not restricted. In other words, you can still engage in interior design, you just can’t sell yourself as a “registered interior designer.” By contrast, you have to have a law license to practice law and you have to have a medical license to practice medicine.
[tags]SB490-2007, licensure[/tags]
My guess is that the sponsors of bills like this had interior decorators in, and then were mortified when the place turned out like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy had blown through. They felt emasculated, and their golf buddies all look at them strangely after a visit to their house.
Obviously the proper way to fix this is to raise taxes on the rich and/or pay state senators less so that they have less disposable income to waste on interior decorators. ;-)
Sen. Kruse: LAME
I suspect that it is something like this that is behind the no adoption facilitators bill currently under consideration by the Senate. Given the huge money at stake, I would not be surprised if an outfit like Kirsh and Kirsh in Indianapolis weren’t behind that adoption bill. There’s nothing better than getting the government to clear out the competition for you so that you can make even more outlandish money. However, when government creates monopolies, it usually regulates them, including their profits–at least to an extent. Does anyone forsee any such caps when/if adoption facilitation is banned?
Does anyone else remember a couple of years ago when an Indy T.V. station did a puff piece on Kirsh and Kirsh and how wonderful they were for getting folks from the Netherlands to adopt all the African American babies that (racist) Hoosiers didn’t want to adopt? The part they forgot to tell you is that they could VERY EASILY find Indiana families to adopt these Indiana children if they didn’t charge 30 – 40 K in fees. They had to go abroad to find the MONEY, not the FAMILIES.
Sorry for bringing up such a niche topic, but for those who would ever pursue adoption, it’s a HUGE deal.
Thanks for the comment. I’ve gotten an inkling of how huge a deal it can be from my wife. Thankfully, we didn’t have any problem having children ourselves, but my wife enjoys reading infertility blogs (a vibrant niche of the blogosphere, as it turns out), and some of the second hand accounts she has given me illustrate just what an ordeal adoption can be (not to mention the great lengths to which people will go to conceive a child.)