Establish governmentbacked barriers of entry into professions and fields based on the allegation that the general safety and welfare of the community is served and protected by them. The reality is that connected Interest Groups favor occupational licensing for its anticompetitive effects. The fees and restrictions instituted by occupational licensure prevent entrepreneurial innovators who often come from modest backgrounds and represent vulnerable groups from efficiently providing consumers with better goods and services. The onus of these laws falls disproportionately on minority communities who would benefit from the elimination of burdensome regulations and the expense of Economic Freedom and mobility. The Johnson Center for political economy recently did a study that was published in 2018 called the cause of occupational cost of occupational licensing in alabama. We have dan sutter with us today who is the executive director of the Johnson Center for political economy. Concludes that we have got a problem with occupational licensure in alabama. I want to read from it just briefly. Alabama licenses 120 occupations 432,000 individuals representing 21 of the states labor force. We estimate the total initial cost of occupational licensure, excluding the educational cost, to be 122 million, and annual license renewal costs for workers and consumers who often pay for these costs in increased prices 45 million total. This pales in comparison to the total initial education costs, which we estimate to be 65 billion and the estimated 243 million annual continuing education costs for license workers in alabama. What are some of these professions that are licensed in alabama . You could be a dietitian, you have to go through all these fees, a midwife, to be in auctioneer, you have to be licensed in our state. Im excited to have Justin Pearson here today to talk about occupational licensure. The title of his talk is wrapped in red tape, stifling the how occupational licensing law stifles the american dream. He is the Florida Office managing attorney at the institute for justice. He has devoted his career to defending the Constitutional Rights of Small Business owners and he has victoriously argued on their behalf at trial in Appellate Courts across the nation. These include winning several types of constitutional challenges that had never previously prevailed anywhere. As a result, justin was honored by the daily Business Review in 2017 for being named one of south floridas most effective lawyers. In addition to litigation, performs a substantial amount of justin legislating work including helping allies and their staff to draft reform bills that have become law. He is frequently invited by state house and Senate Committee chairs to testify on these topics and has done so over a dozen times, with occupational license reform being the most frequent topic. He received his law degree with honors from the university of miami and a bachelors degree from North Carolina state university. He is on the Steering Committee for the federal Society Miami chapter and is on the James MadisonInstitute Board of directors and a member of the American Enterprise institutes leadership network. Justin was kind last night to have dinner with a group of law students and was very helpful in helping them think through their career plans, their studies, their curricula, and he is also generous to be giving his time here to us today so please join us in welcoming Justin Pearson. [applause] mr. Pearson thank you for that generous introduction. Thank you all for having me. Its an honor to be here. I have one of the greatest jobs in the world. I wake up every day and i sue the government. Its a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. Institute for justice, i never sue for money and i never charge my clients anything. My salary and costs are paid for by over 8000 donors. I go across the nation representing all Business Owners pro bono, free of charge. This judges to throw out is something i love doing. Its tied into the whole reason i went to law school in the first place. My mom is a Small Business owner in florida and i went to law school because i wanted to represent Small Business owners like my mom. My dream was to have my own law firm. My first client was my mom. The problem was my clients could not afford to pay me to file be to file big constitutional challenges, so i started doing more and more pro bono work. I now get paid a salary to do the type of thing i used to do for fun as pro bono work. Which is a great deal if you can get it. I love Small Business owners. Am fortunate that i have been able to devote my career to helping Small Business owners like my mom. There is no better place to do that than the institute for justice. Ij is the nations largest libertarian Public Interest law firm. What that means is that we are philosophically libertarian. We represent clients from all different types of backgrounds and worldviews, and we sue republicans just about as much as democrats. Violating the constitution is a bipartisan endeavor. We are in favor of constitutional restraints on government. We are the largest firm of this type in the nation. We are up to over 130 employees in our seven offices. Employees in our seven offices. One reason we have become so large is that we have been tremendously successful over the years. In january we will be arguing our eighth United States supreme cour won six of them. Overall, we went over 70 of our cases. We seek out cases that people then weot be won, and find ways to win them. Focuses on four key areas. Property rights, educational choice, free speech, and economic liberty. Im i say economic liberty, referring to the natural right to earn an honest living without arbitrary government interference. You should be free to pursue supporting yourself in whatever way you think is best for you. If the government wants to interfere with that, they have to have a good reason. It cannot just be that they like your competitor more than they like you. In the era of economic liberty, there is no topic that has a larger impact than the topic im here to focus on today, which is occupational licensing. If you add up all the people impacted by minimumwage laws and any other issue you can , itsof and combine them less than the number of people who are affected by current occupational licensing laws. In the 1950s, only one in 20 americans were hard to get an occupational license or a government permission slip to work. That number is now up to one in four. It was supposed to be a tool of legislaturesthat enacted when there was no other way to achieve the desired goal. Now it is there tool of first resort. People tend to think about doctors and loggers, but when your state has hundreds of occupational licenses, and every state does, its typically not for a doctor or lawyer, its for a dance instructor or auctioneer. These are all real licenses that exist. Right now we see an outbreak of legislatures wanting to license music therapy. Once someone volunteers her time to play music it to kids in the hospital. Its ridiculous. It has led to such abuse and has gotten so out of control that were seeing these really interesting coalitions come together to push back. I dont know how many things the trump and Obama Administrations agree on. I dont think it is a very long list. Onnow for things they agree and they all have to do with occupational licensing. I put together a list of what might possibly be an exhaustive list of everything that President Trump and president obama agree with, and they all have to do with occupational licensing. If you look at think tanks from the right, left, and center, we all agree that these are undisputed facts. The first fact is that occupational licensing kills 2. 80 5 million american jobs every year. 21,000 jobs killed every year because of licensing laws. You dont need corporate welfare, you dont need all these handouts to create jobs. Just through modest reform of licensing laws, you could create thousands of jobs overnight. Weve had tremendous success convincing states to repeal licenses for africanamerican hair breeders. Braiders. Not hair 3000 jobs were created in mississippi from repealing one license. Not every license will create 3000 job if you repeal it, but you can create thousands of jobs and this is undisputed. Fact number two that is undisputed, occupational licensing laws because American Consumers to be overcharged by 203 billion every year. Peopleaws tend to hurt who can least afford it. For example, if you are a wealthy individual and you have to pay a couple of extra bucks , but if you are from a disadvantaged background and everything you buy cost extra, you may have might have to make some tough choices that you otherwise would not have to make. Occupational licensing laws increase recidivism, and of course this makes sense, but it shocked my friends on the left. I remember when some scholars in were in california newspapers talking about how californias occupational licensing laws were increasing recidivism, it blew my friends minds. How can it be that progressive policies are increasing recidivism . But of course, when you make more thinks a crime, you end up with more criminals. You are taking away someones ability to earn a nice living, they are more likely to turn to some other way to support themselves. Fact number four, and this is sure they kicker, lead to recidivism, but certainly they must protect health and safety, right . No, they dont. This was discussed in the Obama Administration and other places. You look at all the studies and all the research that was done, they agree that for the overwhelming majority of licenses, there is no positive impact on health, safety, or welfare. So it is all harm and no benefit. Its all bad and no good. Its a nationwide problem. Have these absurd licenses that should not exist in every state. Alabama, youre basically in the middle of the pack. Of the burden created by licensing laws and how many licenses you have, you are the 25th best or 26 worst, so right there in the middle of the pack. You have a license for shampoo , but when someone is trying to start up and get a job for and start their way up the economic ladder, you dont want to impose extra fees on them. You have the auctioneering license. Its not a license that should exist. In states that dont have that license, there are no problems being caused by the lack of an auctioneers license. Its one of the most difficult licenses to get. It is more difficult to get a license to be an auctioneer than to become an emergency medical technician. Theits not that regulations for emts are not strict enough, they are. Its that the license has no correlation at all with health and safety. It is who has the most powerful special Interest Group and lobby. Stories hear about the and you see all the harm being done, its easy to laugh at these silly laws that exist, like license for timekeepers and people who want to play music for kids in hospitals. Need to remember that when youre talking about these laws being enforced, youre talking about a situation where if someone violates that line of times, Police Officers are going to arrest them. That is precisely what happens with these licensing laws. I have spoken to people who have been arrested and prosecuted for the crime of braiding hair. Teams,ears ago, swat full swat teams rated barbershops on the suspicion of unlicensed barbering. This is what happens when you have these laws. Unfortunately, sometimes things go far astray. I just want to give you unexampled. As i mentioned before, people have been arrested for the crime of braiding hair. An individual in texas is a hair braid her and she was literally arrested for braiding hair about a license. Officers with guns and badges showed up and put her in handcuffs and took her to jail and booked her for the crime of braiding hair. She was able to fight back and eventually get the law changed. Texas law prevented her from teaching anyone how to grade hair. Braid hair if they wanted to go and learn couldnt because it was a crime for her to teach them. At that point, thats when i. J. Got involved and filed a law sought and eventually i would like to do is show you her video quickly. People,hurting real causing real people to go to jail. For braiding hair. Shes is a professional african hair brader. Of opened the institute ancestral braiding and dallas erica baidyu the homeless. In 1997, she was arrested because braiding was a crime unless you had a special license requiring years of schooling having nothing to do with braiding. She thought the licensing law. Although she won the right to braid, texas did not back down completely. A license for braiding into the existing farber statute. Statute. Barber coursecan only teach the at an existing Barber School. Otherwise, she has to build her own Barber School and take expensive and pointless classes. The bottom line is texas has no problem with her teaching. Just with her working for herself. She mustvernment says turn it into a Barber College and install things that have braiding likewith wash stations she will never use. She also needs things like shorthaired manikins. And she has to go back to school for 750 hours. Instructors should not he schools. Build barber that is why she is fighting for her rights once again. She is teaming up with the lawsuite to file a against texas. We want to change the law so itryone else can experience fairly. A victory for her will help barbers in texas and beyond. It is especially important for black women. This is the civil rights movement. Thankfully, we won the case. She is doing well. Teaching people how to braid hair. Beboggles my mind she had to arrested and go to jail first. Obviously, there is a push for reform. Ways the trump and Obama Administration agree. There are also groups pushing for reform. It is more difficult than you would think. We have had some success. Getting rid of an occupational license. Appealed repealed 23 licenses. 200300, it iss just a drop in the bucket. I am going to talk about the challenges we face trying to repeal these licenses that should not exist at all but second, i am going to talk about the challenges we face when we file lawsuits. First, in terms of trying to get reform passed, it is really difficult. The reason it is so difficult is because of a phenomena identified by public choice economists. Has anyone here heard of public choice economics . I see some people raising their hands. I am talking to a knowledgeable crowd, which is terrific. Public choice economics is often described as Political Science without the romance. ,nstead of Political Science which focuses on rhetoric and philosophy and why politicians say they are doing something, public choice economics focuses on why they actually do what they do. In these studies, economists come across a problem they call the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. When you have a program or horrible tois society as a whole, the net effect is a negative effect, if that cost is spread out across all society but the smaller benefit is concentrated in the hands of a few people, it becomes almost impossible to repeal these laws. I see this play out firsthand. A good bill that gets passed by a wellmeaning legislator who realizes these laws need to be repealed. It will go through the committee process. What will happen is legislators who campaigned on deregulation and helping out Small Business owners will try to water down the bill. The way they do this is almost always the same. Heard bybeing committee, a proderegulation legislator will say, i need you to amend this bill. Fan of deregulation. I am a fan of small is this owners. But there are a lot of people from this particular occupation in my district. I need you to amend this bill and take out the reform for that one license. If you do that, i will happily support this good bill. They do it. A legislator who ran in day regulation says the same thing. On deregulation says the same thing. Saying, you know i love deregulation but we need to get rid of this. By the time it makes it out of committee, there is nothing left. It is incredibly frustrating. Fact,so frustrating, and it makes you start to wonder whether you even have a right to economic liberty. Legislatures certainly dont act like you do. Right, or at least you are supposed to. What i would like to do is talk about vindicating that right. Challenging these in court. Often times, these challenges are brought under state constitutional provisions. Constitutions were already in existence when the constitution was ratified. Withs drafted and ratified the understanding these state constitutions already exist. It was state constitutions that were supposed to protect economic liberty. The declaration of rights tends to be fantastic. Language about protecting natural rights. Only legitimate purpose protectnment is to life, liberty, and property. You have all these wonderful provisions that were supposed to protect economic liberty. The framers of the constitution understood, we are already protecting economic liberty. During reconstruction, it turned out the protections were not doing their job. The state judges were not doing what they were supposed to be doing ruling in favor of people whose bites rights were being violated. Types of abuses you tended to see. Alliesslaves and white would have the right to bear arms taken away. The right to vote taken away. The right to be selfsufficient taken away. You would hear Horror Stories of men having free