The Institute for Justice

Florida Interior Design: The Facts

The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), the driving force behind legislative efforts to cartelize the interior design industry, has released a video purporting to explain the effect that deregulating interior design will have on designers in Florida. The video does not cite any evidence and instead simply repeats two myths about the effects of deregulation. Here are the myths, followed by the reality:

Myth:

The current law in Florida is a voluntary licensing program. No one is forced to become licensed, and those who choose not to apply for a license are not prevented from practicing interior design work.

Reality:

If this were true, it would certainly come as a surprise to the many people whom Florida’s Department of Business & Professional Regulation has fined for the unlicensed practice of interior design! These include world-famous interior designers like Juan Montoya and Kelly Wearstler, both of whom were fined thousands of dollars for the unlicensed practice of interior design.

In reality, Florida law expressly prohibits anyone who is not a state-licensed interior designer from practicing commercial interior design. Fla. Stat. §§ 481.223(1)(b), 481.229(6), (8). The Florida Attorney General has even admitted that practicing interior design in Florida without a license is a crime punishable by up to a year in jail or a civil penalty. Joint Pretrial Stipulation (p.7, ¶ 8).

Myth:

The legislation as proposed would eliminate business; the legislation would effectively prevent over 3,000 registered interior design professionals from continuing in their current profession.

Passage of this legislation would eliminate all competition. Effectively it would eliminate the competition in the industry since it would prevent anyone other than architects from working in a code-based environment.

Reality:

Notably, ASID does not cite a single statute, regulation or statement by any government official to support this argument. And with good reason: The interior design cartel has made this same argument in other states and it has been uniformly rejected. As the Texas House Committee on Government Reform found in 2008, “The claim that legislation is necessary to protect interior designers’ right to practice ignores the fact that, but for state regulation, all designers have a natural right to practice.” Texas House of Representatives Interim Report 2008 (p.50). The same conclusion was reached by California (p.7, second paragraph), Colorado (p. 26, last paragraph), and South Carolina (p.26, first paragraph). Additionally, the Interior Design Protection Council published a detailed refutation of this argument.

The fact is, interior designers are doing just fine in the 47 states that don’t require licensure, and they’ll do just fine without regulation in Florida, too. In reality, government regulation of interior design limits opportunities while driving up prices and limiting consumer choice.

For more of the reality about interior design deregulation, be sure to check out the Institute for Justice’s short video (above) on the subject.