Supreme Court to Hear a Case on State Licensing Boards

choi

Angus Loten and Sarah E Needleman, State Licensing Boards Under Fire From Within. Wall Street Journal, Aug 28, 2014
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052970203937904580118060533093160

Quote:

“The [US] Supreme Court will take up an antitrust case this fall that could curb the proliferation of state licenses * * * At issue: Can state licensing boards staffed with business owners and professionals regulate their own markets without oversight from government employees?
"The agency [Federal Trade Commission] rarely receives complaints about professional licensing from consumers, said Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University and a former director of policy planning at the FTC. It is the licensed practitioners who typically pressure state boards into cracking down on unlicensed service providers. They, in turn, complain to the FTC about being harassed by the state.

“Nearly one in three occupations now requires some form of license, compared with just 5% in the 1950s, according to Morris Kleiner, a public policy researcher at University of Minnesota. * * * In the past five years, at least 14 states have added licensing for yoga instructors, including Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Utah. Other newly licensed jobs: eyebrow threading, irrigation contractors and art therapists
My comment:
(a) I do not know about you. But two decades ago I sued people in federal court for antitrust violations, and read all Supreme Court decisions about it.
(b) Republicans detest state licensing, considering it government overreaching and enriching schools that train people to get licenses. They believe that without licensing, a barber who cut hair badly will not have the repeat customers. Few, however, argue against licensing doctors and lawyers.