The Moscow-Pullman Daily News carried an article on licensing laws in Idaho.
Not because they carry about the economics of licensing, but because they care about feminists. But at least it’s a foot in the door. Maybe.
Licensing protects few people but it lines the pockets of those with money.
BOISE — Rep. Robert Anderst felt frustrated when a constituent called him with a complaint about licenses. The man wanted to be a real estate agent, and because he “got busted for drugs 20 years ago,” he couldn’t get an Idaho license, the Idaho Press reported.
The number of U.S. occupations that require a license has ballooned from about 1 in 20 half a century ago to about 1 in 4 today, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Roughly 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. has some sort of criminal record.
The intersection of those two factors is among the issues Idaho is facing as it seeks to reform its occupational licensing laws, an effort Gov. Brad Little kicked off with an executive order while he was still lieutenant governor in 2017, and on which both Little and lawmakers are pressing ahead.
For years, many occupational licensing laws and rules simply banned anyone from licensing if they’d committed a felony, or a crime, or if they weren’t of “good character” or had committed an act of “moral turpitude,” which wasn’t defined.“Like many parts of the country, we are experiencing low unemployment, which is great,” said Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, “but it makes it harder to find people to hire. It seems like we have more jobs than we have qualified applicants, and I think this is a way to help with that.”