What do you do again?

If you want to work in New Mexico -- and four other states as an interior designer, you can go ahead and do so. But if you want to call yourself an "interior designer," you'd better take a state-mandated licensing exam, or face the full wrath of the law. And that barrier to accurately describing your profession on your business cards and in the yellow pages isn't exactly a low hurdle. According to the Institute for Justice:

New Mexico’s speech-licensing requirements for interior designers are not easy to meet. First, applicants must pass an exam administered not by the State, but by a private, national credentialing body called the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ). But not just anyone may take the NCIDQ exam. Just to sit for the exam, NCIDQ requires people to have six years combined college-level interior design education and work experience.[15] That education/experience requirement is reflected in New Mexico law, which likewise provides that applicants for an interior design free-speech license must either have six years total experience and education from an “accredited institution” or an eight-year apprenticeship under a designer who has passed the NCIDQ exam described above.[16] Essentially, what New Mexico has fashioned is a guild of interior designers.

Four other states go even further: Alabama, Florida, Nevada and Louisiana plus the District of Columbia all prevent people from even working as interior designers unless they jump through hoops established by government bureaucrats.

Not surprisingly, these licensing laws have been pushed not by consumers suffering bad feng shui from the ravages of incompetent interior designers, but by the design industry itself. The American Society of Interior Designers has waged a campaign to "professionalize" the industry -- and, incidentally, limit the competition -- by establishing legally enforceable barriers to entry.

Fortunately, most states see little reason to test and license people before allowing then to decide where to put your sofa. But the residents of New Mexico are among the minority who have to beg, hat in hand, to be allowed to openly and fully practice their craft.

So IJ has taken on the task of representing New Mexicans who work as interior designers and want to exercise their right to accurately describe to the public what they do to earn their keep.

The Institute’s legal challenge is straightforward: prohibiting people from truthfully describing what they do—interior design—violates their First Amendment right to free expression. With very narrow exceptions, all types of speech are protected by the Constitution, including so-called “commercial speech” that “does no more than propose a commercial transaction.”[21] Thus, to regulate advertising, the government must have a substantial reason for restricting speech, and any limits must be carefully designed to actually achieve the government’s objectives while having only the narrowest infringement on speech.[22]

Offering your services to willing customers is a right -- not a privilege. And, as IJ points out, accurately describing the services you offer is simple free speech.

Here's hoping IJ and the plaintiffs prevail.