Bad Government: What is harder than the Bar Exam (you know, that lawyers take)

So before I tell you the answer, let me introduce this segment of my blog.  Exactly what it says, Bad Government.  I will discuss various laws, court cases, or actions by the government that I have run across which are hurtful to the public (or rationality and intellect) that it is trying to protect.

Answer: The Louisiana Floral Exam.  (For reference the state level is 77% passed in 2009 for the bar exam.)

(For reference the time line of this spans 2003 through today.)  Yes, in order to arrange flowers in Louisiana you have to be licensed to do so.  After taking an hour written exam and pass a four hour 'practical' exam.  I originally learned of this from one of my favorite haunts, Reason.com.  For reference the organization attacking this 'dumb law' is the Institute of Justice.  This looks like a group to take a second look at.  Anyone who wants to help remove stupid laws from the books is perfectly ok with me.  I am sure there will be a forth coming blog about them.  (Here is a link to the Institute of Justice's website about this case.)  Gotta love it that NPR did a report on this as well.

Now let me try to defend the organization (I really am trying here).  Why could someone believe this is a good idea.  Perhaps you are interested in keeping a certain minimum level of 'beauty' in the flower arrangements in your state.  Well, why should it matter what I have in my house?  Why should the person be licensed (which will increase his fees since he now has to pay for an additional business expense)?  Lets say that the reason to ensure a consistent viewing beauty of an area or wedding.  Well if I don't care about something like, 'if the wire used is the correct size,' why should I be forced to pay for it.  If the towns and populace of the state want their public buildings to have some kind of standard why don't they pass a specific law which says that arrangements destined for state use have to have a certain standard (Though personally for me if the state didn't want to spend the extra money why should they?  Aren't most states beyond broke?).

It is really easy to see who this helps.  Therein lies the problem.  Now I will admit it is hard to tell what the cost of this lack of competition is on the customer.  How can you compare something like floral arrangements.  I tried trust me.  The best I could do is find something to compare (arrangement of just 12 red roses).  What I did was look for towns on both sides of a border (Vidalia, La. and Natchez Mi. were the two I choose).  So I prices 12 red roses on both sides.  From Vidalia I found: 49-69, 65-100, and 70.  From Natchez I found: 70, 75, 65.  However all of the websites look like the same person made them.  So the results are inconclusive (they could all be owned by the same person).  However lack of results doesn't imply lack of effects.  I have to ask though, what is the real point of this licensing board?  If there were stronger competition in Louisiana maybe the populace could save a little money.  Even if this is not true, freedom is more important than ' unhelpful laws'.

So how did the story end up with the Institute for Justice?  Well the website is still up for the licensing board, as always 'working' with the legislators to ensure 'florist's needs' are being met (whatever that means, it seems the only thing I could find them doing was stopping a law to remove this licensing requirement).  (Obviously they only care about those who are in the program not those who are shut out of the program.)  Schools are still open which provide a 'notebook covering the 80 hour course' for only $890.00 plus $785.00.  Yes, you read that correctly.  If you want a low-level floral arrangement job it will cost you about 167 hours (at $10 an hour) which is about 7% of your yearly income if you work 2000 hours, before taxes.  You would not believe how hard it is to find materials about the outcome of the case but after way too long I have found a couple of things: this is from the Institute for Justice's website (read the bottom of the article, if this doesn't scream remove special interests from politics I don't know what does).

So I was actually able to track down the court case ruling.  The results can be found here (you would not believe how hard this was to find, just goto the 5th circuit court in Louisiana and search for 'Barbara Peacock').  Basically hurricane Katrina and the length of legal proceedings have made the case moot since neither women wanted to arrange flowers in Louisiana anymore.  This seems like a missed opportunity to invalidate a suffocating law but I am sure justice was served since to rule the court case needed to still be applicable.  However I have to ask if after this amount of time the court case could ever have not been moot.  The court case was about the inability to apply a trade in the state.  No one can be unemployed for that long.  So no matter what the women would have moved onto other things.  It seems to me that this requirement for the case is more the devil here.  Anyway that was the result.  The opinion is short and enlightening (about how the system actually works).

As a footnote I read across a hardcore libertarian opinion on the case (found here).  Read at your leisure but don't expect me to comment on that article.  I haven't fully digested it yet and don't want to comment on it because of that.