Please COPY and PASTE the letter below
(insert the name of your business)
or download here then FAX to SB 1312 author, the committee chair and the senator from your district or you may call in your opposition.
(You'll find senator phone and FAX numbers at the bottom)
The hearing is on Monday, May 19, 2008
Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing on SB 1312
State Capitol
Time: 10:00 A.M. in Room 4203
Sacramento, CA
Please FAX your letter by Friday, May 16, 2008
May 14, 2008The Honorable ______________
Member of the Senate
State Capitol
Sacramento, California 94248-0001
SUBJECT: SB 1312 Yee) – (as amended 5-13-08) -Registered Interior Designers – CONTINUE TO OPPOSE Dear Senator _________;
This letter is to express the continued opposition from (insert the name of your business) to SB 1312.
I do not feel the amendments made
to the bill in the policy committee address the reasons for our opposition. I still see SB 1312 as creating a Practice Act, as stated in the bill, for a select group of interior designers in California to allow this
group to engage in activities that would be denied to the rest of the interior design industry.
For twenty five years CLCID has served as the primary interior design coalition in the state of California. The
membership consists of designers from all over the State with various affiliations and backgrounds. The CLCID includes members of the California Chapters of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, Interior Design
Society and International Furnishing and Design Association; independent Interior Designers, Individual Members affiliated with the American Society of Interior Designers or International Interior Design Association;
students, educators, the interior design industry, and allies of CLCID. All of these groups continue to oppose SB 1312.
Submission of Plans and Drawings
The stated purpose for Senate Bill 1312 is to
assure that, by creating the title of "registered interior designer", interior designers will be able to legally submit plans and drawings to local building officials. Without SB 1312 it has been stated that current
interior designers would be prohibited from doing so by the International Building Code.
Neither California, nor any local officials that we are aware of, have adopted the International Building Code (IBC) or
any restrictions as to who can submit plans and drawings to local agencies. California has adopted its own version of the IBC, the California Building Code (CBC) that does not contain any restriction concerning the
submission of plans to local agencies or requirement that only registered design professionals are allowed to submit plans and drawings. SB 1312 is merely a solution looking for a problem. If there were a few isolated
instances where a construction code enforcement official mistakenly required that the submission be made by a registered design professional where there was clearly no structural or life safety issues involved, this is
easily rectified by clarifying the CBC with the officials; the licensing of an entire industry, establishment of a new Board and adverse impact on a large segment of the design community which this bill would have is
certainly not necessary or warranted.
California Already Certifies Interior Designers
Section 5800 of the Business and Professions Code already establishes the Certified Interior Designer Law and the
California Council for Interior Design Certification (CCIDC). California certification is a voluntary program that requires an interior designer to follow a "Code of Ethics" and pass an exam covering California Codes
and Regulations (CCRE) to become a Certified Interior Designer. It already recognizes the NCIDQ exam as one of several tests, plus a codes exam, as qualifying a designer for Certification. Thus, the mechanism is already
in place to achieve the purposes that the proponents of SB 1312 seek to rectify, without needlessly retracing anyone from practicing their profession or forcing them to take one, private, unregulated exam that is
unrelated to California codes and law.
The Codes exam, given by the California Council for Interior Design Certification, is really the only exam that would test the minimum competency of a designer for
California codes and laws, but with one very significant difference – it is open to anyone who can qualify and pass the exams and demonstrate sufficient competencies in design, not just a select few who go to the
"right" schools and programs, who take the "right" test as determined by the sponsors of SB 1312.
NCIDQ Exam is Discriminatory
I strongly disagree that a single exam serving only a small portion of the
industry should serve as an industry standard and deny access to all other interior design professionals. To become registered, Senate Bill 1312 requires an interior designer to pass an exam (called the NCIDQ exam)
given by a private organization based in Washington D.C. This is an expensive exam over which California has no control, has an historically low passage rate, requires that you graduate from select design programs and
forces an internship on designers from two to four years under the direct supervision of an NCIDQ certificate holder or architect. The NCIDQ exam ignores experience in the profession to even qualify to take the exam. If
you can't sit for the exam, you can't become registered, and the qualifications to take the test may be changed at any time at the whim of the NCIDQ (as has been done repeatedly in past years). As mentioned above, the
NCIDQ exam also does not test for knowledge of California Codes and Regulations as provided by current state law.
No Demonstrated Need for SB 1312.
There is no public outcry or threat to public safety,
health or welfare that requires licensing of the interior design industry. The proposal to create a practice act and restrict who can be called a "registered interior designer" is designed to allow a single
organization, the American Society for Interior Design (ASID), to essentially only allow their own members to be considered registered interior designers and exclude all others. ASID has attempted to enact a practice
act in many other states, but nothing has been adopted since the 1990s. In the three states that do have such legislation, all make a distinction between residential and commercial design, unlike the proposed bill which
would exclude anyone except their members from performing registered design services. Furthermore, the Alabama Supreme Court recently declared that state's interior design practice act unconstitutional. That practice
act was much less restrictive than the one proposed here, and still the Supreme Court found that the law achieved no valid public purpose other than to benefit the select few designers who met their own self-imposed
standards. As Justice Parker stated in that case:
"Not only are [the designer's ] rights to contract and to engage in her chosen occupation at stake in this case, but also the rights of the people of Alabama to
contract with her. If a homeowner or businessperson wants to express himself by decorating his home or his office in a certain way, and if that person believes [the designer] can best provide the design that he desires,
the State should not tell that person that he may not contract with [the designer] merely because [th designer] lacks state certification or an academic degree. Nor should this Court embrace the paternalistic notion
that the average citizen is incapable of choosing a competent interior designer without the State's help."
For these reasons I am still opposed to SB 1312.
Sincerely,
Your name
Title
Name and address of your business
Fax the above letter to: Senate Appropriations Committee MembersSenator Leland Yee (Bill author) *Please FAX letter
State Capitol, Room 4048
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4008
Fax:
(916) 327-2186
Senator Tom Torlakson (Chair) *Please FAX letter
State Capitol, Room 5050
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4007
Fax: (916) 445-2527
... and please FAX a letter to the Senator from your district (below) or you may call in your opposition.
If you don't know who your Senator is, find here.
Senator Dave Cox (Vice Chair)
State Capitol, Room 2068
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone:
(916) 651-4001
Fax: (916) 324-2680
Senator Samuel Aanestad
State Capitol, Room 2054
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4004
Fax:
(916) 445-7750
Senator Roy Ashburn
State Capitol, Room 3060
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone:
(916) 651-4018
Fax: 916) 322-3304
Senator Gilbert Cedillo
State Capitol, Room 5100
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4022
Fax:
916) 327-8817
Senator Ellen Corbett
State Capitol, Room 3092
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone:
(916) 651-4010
Fax: 916) 327-2433
Senator Robert Dutton
State Capitol, Room 5094
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4031
Fax:
(916) 327-2272
Senator Dean Florez
State Capitol, Room 5061
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone:
(916) 651-4016
Fax: (916) 327-5989
Senator Sheila Kuehl
State Capitol, Room 5108
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4023
Fax:
(916) 324-4823
Senator Jenny Oropeza
State Capitol, Room 4074
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone:
(916) 651-4028
Fax: (916) 323-6056
Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas
State Capitol, Room 4061
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone:(916) 651-4026
Fax:
(916) 445-8899
Senator George Runner
State Capitol, Room 5097
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4017
Fax: (916) 445-4662
Senator Joe Simitian
State Capitol, Room 2080
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4011
Fax: (916) 323-4529
Senator Mark Wyland
State Capitol, Room 4066
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001
Phone: (916) 651-4038
Fax:(916) 446-7382
Once again, the hearing date is May 19 so please send your letter before May 16 - Thank you!
To get the latest information on SB 1312, click below:
http://info.sen.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_1312&sess=CUR&house=B&site=sen
|
Designer licensing bill touches off fierce duel
By Dan Walters
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, April 14, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A3
www.sacbee.com/111/story/859232.html The Capitol has seen countless "scope of practice" battles between competing professional groups, usually of the medical variety.The epic,
years-long duel between podiatrists and orthopedic surgeons over the legal right to perform ankle surgery is the best-known (the podiatrists won) and others have pitted psychologists against psychiatrists over the right
to prescribe drugs and dental surgeons against plastic surgeons over facial remodeling. True to form, another scope of practice conflict has erupted in the Capitol this year, but this time it involves not
medicine but who can and cannot design the interiors of homes and commercial buildings. An
organization of interior designers has chosen California as one of many battlegrounds in its decades-long campaign to achieve state- licensed professional status, but is running into fierce opposition from interior
designers who would not meet the proposed licensing standards and thus, they say, be denied some business, and from architects who see an incursion into their design business.The American Association of
Interior Designers (AAID) is promoting professionalization bills in a flock of states this year, including Senate Bill 1213, carried by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco. San Francisco interior designer
Bruce Goff, who tracks legislation for the sponsoring Interior Design Coalition of California, says state licensing would affect only designers who do projects covered by building codes – not those who are primarily
decorators – and cites "more and more risk-averse" local building inspectors as creating a need for state licensing. Goff concedes, however, that what's happening in California is "part of a
national effort by interior designers." And, in fact, the education and experience requirements in the Yee bill are virtually identical to those sought by AAID elsewhere. Critics see the drive as a way
for one faction of designers to carve out a lucrative niche for themselves, screening out competitors who don't meet its licensing standards on one hand while intruding on architects' practices on the other.
"This bill would for the first time restrict many thousands of designers in the state of California from practicing a profession in which they have engaged in without complaint for years," the National Kitchen
and Bath Association said in a letter to Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles, who chairs the Senate committee that will decide the Yee bill's initial fate. "Interior designers often are an integral
part in the design process, and frequently work with architects in planning and designing interior spaces," the American Institute of Architects also told Ridley-Thomas in its opposition letter.
"However, their knowledge, acquired through education and experience, does not include the whole building system, and this knowledge is necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public." All of the factions have, of course, retained experienced Capitol lobbyists to wage their professional turf battle. There is an underlying philosophical point in this duel, as in all of the
political struggles over scope of practice: Is there any real public interest at stake here, or, as is so often the case, is it merely an economic rivalry? It's been evident in the medical scope of practice
battles that the potential effect on patients' health of allowing someone to perform some medical procedure was the least influential element in the outcome. In this case, one must wonder whether licensing
interior designers is of any material benefit to the public or, as Indiana Gov. Mitchell Daniels said as he vetoed a similar bill last year, "the principal effect … will be to restrain competition and limit new
entrants into the occupation." |
