The Honorables do the right thing
Published April 9, 2016
Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, April 8, 2016.
It's easy to snipe at the legislature when it does something wrong, and lately, North Carolina's Honorables have been fish in the figurative barrel.
So, we ought to take note when they do something right -- maybe even two things right.
A joint committee, doing homework for the upcoming April 25 "short session," met Tuesday to consider a proposal to abolish or reorganize nearly two dozen of the state's 50-plus licensing boards for various occupations.
Even folks who aren't knee-jerk anti-government ideologues think this just might be a good idea. Critics are right that many of these boards aren't about saving the public from malpractice but more about limiting competition and keeping service fees high.
Some of the rules are a little weird. For example, to be an EMT and work on a rescue squad or ambulance crew in North Carolina, you need 169 hours of training. Beauticians and hairdressers, by contrast, are required to pass 1,500 hours of training.
Now hair care is important and lots of teenagers would just die with a bad dye job -- but isn't caring for the injured or victims of heart attacks rather more important?
Opponents also argue that a lot of licensing rules are out of date. In the age of Yelp and other online review sites, they claim, a bad hair stylist or electrologist would quickly be outed on the Internet.
So give the Honorables an "A" for effort.
What happened next, though, was illuminating.
Not surprisingly, representatives of some of the occupations whose boards were marked for axing -- among them, foresters, optometrists, athletic trainers, pastoral counselors and librarians -- showed up at the oversight meeting.
Their spokespeople made the case that they really did need licensing. Athletic trainers, for example, ought to know a whole lot about musculature, first aid and physiology. At a bare minimum, they ought to be able to tell if a middle-aged trainee is (a. malingering or (b. in the early stages of a heart attack.
Yes, killing a few clients would weed out the bad apples, but don't we want these folks to get some verified training before that happens?
The Honorables decided the whole question needed more study, so they postponed any action until after the 2016 short session, which is going to be pretty hectic anyway.
Contrast that with the eight-hour rush to judgment in the one-hour special session that produced the misbegotten HB-2, the bill that was supposed to guarantee bathroom safety but wound up doing some many other unwise things.
If only our elected legislators had taken their time, or waited until April 25 to take this up.
Let's face it: More than 200 other cities, including Myrtle Beach and Columbia, S.C., have long had anti-discrimination ordinances, almost similar to the one in Charlotte that set all this off. No one has reported a rash of bathrooms assaults there.
Conservatives used to argue that the unintended consequences of badly written laws can be disastrous, so lawmakers should be hesitant to pass new laws and should take their time when writing them.
So, what happened with HB-2? Other than rallying the party base during an election year, what were our Honorables thinking? And what was Gov. Pat McCrory thinking when he signed it?
April 9, 2016 at 10:48 am
Norm Kelly says:
No sense in stopping with simply praising Republicans for doing the right thing. Of course licensing has gotten out of hand. Of course the rules make no sense. There seems to have been no review and no logic when these rules were considered. It seems that when these rules were put in place, they legislators at the time simply took the idea from licensing proponents and implemented exactly what THEY wanted. Without consideration of logic or thought. Which is why hairdressers require more training than EMT people. I wonder who was in charge of the legislature when these goofy rules were put in place? Can ANYONE answer this question? Isn't it important to note who did this to us? Who forced limited competition and higher prices upon NC residents? It would seem from this post that NO is the obvious answer. It's more important to leave the topic at hand, criticizing the erroneous implementors, in favor of finding ANOTHER reason to criticize Republicans with a false narrative.
So, who is it that created goofy rules to cost us more? Who was it that ruled the legislature for the majority of 100 years? Who is it that could have possibly implemented rules that don't make sense? Who is it that Republicans are finally getting around to straightening out? That's right! Once again, Republicans are undoing the goofy rules put in place by DEMONCRATS! Who is it that DEMONSTRATES they are more interested in ALL NC residents? That's right, Republicans! Who is it that DEMONSTRATES they are interested in picking & choosing winners & losers? That's right, DEMONCRATS! Who is trying to make the cost of living here & doing business here more affordable? That's right, Republicans!
And the conclusion of this post gets it 100% wrong. Must be because the author let their lib bias come through. The legislature actually got it RIGHT when they passed HB2 and Gov Pat signed it into law. It does NOT matter how many other locations got it wrong, so long as we do it right! Protecting ALL citizens of NC is more important than creating SPECIAL PROTECTIONS for a small group. It's more important to allow citizens to rally around what's good for EVERYONE rather than continuing the lib/demon idea of creating sub-groups that are constantly at odds with each other. We are all citizens of NC, not sub-groups of people. We all benefit when we are all protected equally. Want to know how to get it wrong, regardless of what 'it' is? Allow the demons to present their scheme. Then, do the opposite. Almost guaranteed to get it right! Look at how colleges/universities do things, like free speech. Free speech, contrary to lib 'thought' processes, is guaranteed in the U S Constitution. Yet, on college campi, a government institution where the Constitution should be of utmost importance, it is REQUIRED that you get to a special location where semi-free speech is allowed. Even in the free-speech zones, it is required on campi to avoid using certain words or phrases, and to avoid offending anyone even if what you say is true and provable. Use a women's restroom when you have a penis, acceptable. Refer to a woman's hairstyle as 'attractive' be taken to court for a hostile environment or charged with sexual harrasment; unless you are on a college campus in which case you will be expelled for expressing sexually explicit words in a non-free-speech zone!
How's that for libs getting it right?! See, find out how libs want to approach a specific topic, like free speech, gerrymandering, or licensing, and you will know exactly how NOT to do it! Been true for 100 years, gonna be true for another 100!
