Interior designers want to make it a crime to decorate places of "public accommodation" without a license. In other words, they'd like the Legislature to help them cartelize the interior design industry in Texas.
The interior designers, of course, don't see this as an income-maintenance program. They're just worried about safety. "[L]icensed interior designers are trained in health, safety and welfare, are qualified to draw and develop specifications (electrical or plumbing fixtures or ceiling modifications, for example) and to create non-load-bearing elements of buildings, whereas non-licensed decorators are not." Makes a lot of sense. Because someone somewhere may want his plumbing redesigned, I have to hire a licensed professional to pick out a wall color. That's like making me hire a certified arborist to mow my yard.
Professions that petition the Legislature to protect the "public" usually have better cover than this. Typically, there's been a gory accident, triggering predictable calls for tighter standards. What the decorators really need is a good newspaper headline, something like "Family wiped out in grisly interior-design related accident; state's lack of certification program called into question."
But let's suppose for just a minute that it really is safer to hire a licensed interior designer than an unlicensed one. Will this legislation promote safety? No. Just the opposite. The proposed legislation applies only to the design of businesses and other public places. It will force out cheap, unlicensed designers, raising fees for licensed interior designers who design for public spaces. The higher fees will induce licensed interior designers to substitute out of residential design into commercial design. Meanwhile, unlicensed decorators will be herded into residential design. Homeowners, as a result, will be more likely to end up using unlicensed designers. Since they're presumably less sophisticated than businesses -- and thus less able to screen designers without the state's assistance -- they're more likely to end up with unqualified designers. And we can expect more interior-design related injuries at home.
Frankly, I'm surpised that the interior designer profession would ignore such an obvious threat to safety. Our homeowners surely deserve just as much protection in the home as they receive at work.
