RENT-SEEKERS GOTTA SEEK RENTS: Occupational Licensing Reform Is Bipartisan. California Didn’t Get the Message.

A party-line vote in a California legislative committee derailed a promising licensing bill proposed by state Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin). The bill would not have made any immediate changes to California’s licensing laws; it merely would have created a petition process to allow individuals to ask a board to review and rescind its own regulations—with an eye towards reducing lawsuits challenging particularly onerous rules.

Additionally, the bill would have prohibited licensing boards from denying a license solely because an applicant had unpaid student loans or a criminal record.

But even those relatively mild reforms were deemed too dangerous by Golden State Democrats, who uniformly opposed the measure.

Those Democrats were backed by the special interests that benefit from keeping barriers to employment high.

But of course.