Pelican State Bouquet

New at Reason: Does Louisiana's licensing requirement for florists really result in better floral arrangements? Three outlaw flower ladies are suing the Sportsman's Paradise for their right to put a snapdragon with a larkspur, and Jacob Sullum takes up their cause. My question: Since the state's licensing test judges aesthetic achievement, isn't there a First Amendment case to be made here too?

Comments

[Jennifer A.]

Of course, there are *some* good arguments to be made for regulating a slaughterhouse--you can't tell if meat is contaminated merely by looking at it--but flowers? Exactly what are we being protected from here?

I lived in Virginia back when the state was notorious for being a place where any schmuck with a buck could buy a gun. However, if you wanted to become a hairdresser you needed years or training and a special license. I guess the state figured that a bad hair day is a fate worse than death.

[Jason Ligon]

Schmuck with a buck isn't the worst criteria I've ever heard ...

[ed]

It's the guy with a Glock in one hand and a poorly arranged bridal bouquet in the other that I worry about.

[joe]

I've read about a lot of dumb shit on this site, but Good God!

[ed]

Joe,

It's funny cuz it's true.
That, and we might all be drunk by now.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"I've read about a lot of dumb shit on this site..."

You've been reading your own posts again, haven't you?

[ed]

I'm bored.
I'm Chairman of the Bored.

[Rob]

There's a meatball pitch down the center of the plate, if I saw one...

[tchiers]

Whouldn't it be great if this is the end of The Slaughter House Cases? Shit that started in LA, ends there too?

[Jean Bart]

tchiers,

Can you briefly describe the "Slaughterhouse Cases?" Thankyou. 🙂

[Grant Gould]

A good overview is:

http://www.ij.org/slaughter_folder/slaughtercat.html

IANAL, but my understanding is that in essence, it went like this:

New Orleans enacted a monopoly for slaughterhouses, and awarded it to a company that had given large quantites of money and stock to members of the legislature. The rationale was notionally civic improvement and improvement of working conditions.

Three competing slaughterhouses sued, saying that the legislature had no right to make dumb-ass laws like that that had no legitimate basis. In particular they argued that the "privileges and immunities" given protection in the fourteenth amendment included the right to operate a lawful, competitive business.

The court upheld the law, noting that although the fourteenth amendment had bound the states to the bill of rights, it had not bound them to any of the unenumerated rights recognized in those amendments.
--G

[Jean Bart]

Grant Gould,

So this was a very limited interpretation of the amendment then? After all, it appears to me that the amendment is used in all sorts of fashions today.

[joe]

Wow, that was clever, Doug. The rapier wit we've come to expect.

[Will Spencer]

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

-- Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

[Rebecca]

I've been reading elsewhere about the Louisiana Florist Mafia (that's a joke), and it's ludicrous. The judges of the practical portion of the state exam are the same florists that the test-taker would be competing with. Scores on the same bouquet range from 100 to 0, with no rational basis for explaining the disparity in scores. People who have years of flower-arranging experience face stiff fines for "floristry without a license". It's given the state's florists guild powers, preventing people from setting up competition because they themselves worry about keeping their jobs. They're afraid that if there are more florists, that they'll get less business personally. Well, how certain are they of their own design skills?