By Jeff Rice

Two years ago in Murphys, members of AIBD-CS were a part of a discussion by Bruce Goff of the American Society of Interior Designers discussing with us their plans to by-pass the Certification process and go straight for licensing. Earlier this year, ASID submitted legislation, via Senators Yee and Calderon, to create an Interior Design licensing law. SB 1312 would have been a sweeping change to the status of Interior Designers in California. It called for the California Architects Board to be renamed the California Architects and Interior Designer Board and would register and license those Interior Designers who had met the educational qualifications and passed their licensing examination.
   The response to this bill was immediate and strong. It was roundly condemned by just about everyone from the California Architects Board to the AIA to the California Legislative Coalition for Interior Design. In May of this year, the AIBD-CS board of directors reviewed this legislation and found that it could have been very harmful to building designers as it did not include any form of the Exemptions which we currently operate under. At that time, the board issued a proclamation that, as it was currently written, AIBD-CS could not support this bill and, in fact, were against it being made into law.
   During the educational portion of this year's state conference in Sacramento, we invited Doug McCauley, Executive Director of the California Architects Board, and Bruce Goff, Legislative Director for ASID, to talk to our members about this bill. Both explained their respective positions and laid out their reasons for and objections to the legislation. The CAB's point of view is that this legislation was completely unnecessary. According to a letter submitted to the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, President of the Board, Jon Alan Baker said: "Simply stated, there is no demonstrated need to license or register interior designers in California. There is no demonstrated threat to the public health, safety and welfare via the current system in California or nationally. Absent a specific, documented need for public protection, it is completely inappropriate to create an unnecessary, costly and exclusionary governmental licensing program. In addition, the current statutory means for certifying interior designers via the California Council for Interior Design Certification appear to be working well and was recently validated by the Legislature's Sunset Review process."
   As it turned out, during the time we were having our conference, ASID had completely revised their bill, substantially modifying their approach. They changed the requirement from a Board of Interior Designers to a technical committee of the CAB - similar to the Landscape Architects. In addition, they lifted, in its entirety - word for word - all of the Architects Practice Act's exemption clauses - including Section 5537, the residential exemption section. After these changes were presented to our members and a subsequent discussion, the members felt that it would be better for AIBD-Cs to take a neutral stance - to neither support or oppose the bill.
   During the rest of May, ASID managed to get their legislation out of committee and on to the Senate floor. However, opposition to this bill became overwhelming, and it was removed from the Senate - effectively killing it for this year. However, a few days later, there were rumors afloat that indicated the advocates for this bill were trying to get the language attached to another bill in the hopes of getting back to the Senate floor. As of this writing, no further information is available on the status of this bill.
   At the June meeting of AIBD-CS's board of directors, this bill was reviewed once again and considering the effective opposition to this bill, the board of directors voted unanimously to not support this legislation in the event it re-surfaces. We will keep you advised