The controversial plan to institute contractor licensing has slowed down in Saint Joseph. There is a very solid article about the dispute here in the News-Press. Unfortunately, while the vote has been delayed as a result of various controversies, it seems unlikely that the proposal will be defeated wholesale. To that end, it’s a good time to remind people of the op-ed I wrote about this exact subject in August, which the News-Press was kind enough to run.

Occupational licensing harms our economy, and does not protect consumers. I hope the Saint Joseph City Council realizes that.

I learned something about our beloved state in a golf trip to Ireland, from which I just returned. On two occasions there, when somebody heard we were from Missouri, they gave an instant response of, “Oh, yeah, Josey Wales.” Apparently, the most famous thing about Missouri in Ireland — and, perhaps, the only famous thing — is the Clint Eastwood classic The Outlaw Josey Wales. If this had just happened once, I would have assumed we were just taking to an Eastwood fanatic. But it happened twice! Once from a caddy, and once from some guy in a bar, who lived off the coast of Ireland on an island so small that the other Irish made fun of it.

So, it would appear to me that the State Division of Tourism, instead of airing its “Come to Missouri” ads in Illinois and Kentucky, where they already know all about us, should be airing ads during Gaelic Football matches in Dublin, telling people to come walk where the real-life inspiration for Josey Wales walked, or something like that. Along the way, they could stop at McGurk’s and visit Lucky.

Under the Missouri Constitution, no government agency can prohibit or punish people’s efforts to cooperate with each other as they strive to attain the best deals they can get in exchange for their labor. Last year, in Independence NEA v. Independence School District, the state’s Supreme Court was called upon to determine whether this right to bargain collectively applies to public employees as well as private ones.

The case came before the Court because the Independence School District decided to unilaterally modify the contract it had reached in collaboration with teachers’ union representatives. The district reasoned that, because teachers were specifically excluded from statutes providing a framework for collective bargaining with public-sector employees, the agreement with the teachers’ unions was not binding — because it had been reached through a sort of collective bargaining process. The Supreme Court disagreed. Even though previous decisions by the Court had limited the scope of the Constitution’s collective bargaining guarantees, the Court overturned those cases and held instead that all employees, including those in the public sector, are protected by the Constitution.

This win for the teachers’ unions has led to quite a conundrum across the state, which is discussed by a story in today’s Springfield News-Leader. In the decision’s aftermath, union officials called for legislators to pass a statute that would govern the collective bargaining process for teachers. Interestingly, however, the Missouri NEA and the MTSA (each of which represent a substantial percentage of teachers in many districts throughout the state) have very different ideas about what would make the best framework. The MNEA, which is the larger organization, wants a winner-takes-all solution in which a majority vote would decide on one union to handle representation for all of a district’s teachers. The MTSA, on the other hand, wants to establish negotiating committees that would allow for proportional representation from both unions. This sort of framework would assure MTSA teachers that their representatives had a seat at the negotiating table, even if a majority of teachers in the district were represented by the MNEA. In short, the teachers’ unions got what they asked for, and now they are each lobbying the state to mediate the resulting conflict.

This situation echoes the broader problem in our union-driven education system: The unions’ proposals call for the legislature to create a one-size-fits-all approach that will bind all of the state’s school districts and teachers. While a state-mandated approach undoubtedly serves the interests of the unions themselves, the idea is really pretty silly. Let the teachers sort out for themselves how to handle bargaining!

Imagine a hypothetical school district that employs 100 teachers, of whom 80 belong to the MNEA, 15 belong to MTSA, and five would prefer to negotiate their own contracts. Why couldn’t the district reach one agreement that would cover MNEA teachers, another that would cover MTSA teachers, and separate contracts to cover the five independents? Under this model, teachers would have a choice about which deal served them best — a union negotiation or an independent contract. If members of one union became disillusioned with their representation, they would have the option of switching to the other union or going independent, a model that would empower individual teachers. I think that’s a very good thing!

The unions, of course, would be appalled by this suggestion. A union wields power by presenting a united front on behalf of all the members of a profession, thus assuring that when potential employers don’t meet the union’s demands, no work will be done. Unions can only maintain this power by ensuring that workers will not seek independent employment agreements that deviate from the union’s demands. Under ideal circumstances, unions should secure cooperation from workers only through persuasion — convincing them that remaining in step with union goals is in their best interest. Unfortunately, however, unions sometimes turn to coercive threats when persuasion proves unsuccessful.

Tying back to the news story, one way to avoid this sort of risky intimidation — while achieving similar results — is for the unions to seek legislation that uses the power of the state to entrench their status and curtail dissent. It should be obvious, however, that it is not appropriate for the unions to use the legislature to accomplish what their reasoning cannot. Teachers (and school districts!) should be free to approach the bargaining table on their own terms, not on terms dictated to them by the unions or the legislature.

Washington, Mo., residents — yours truly included — are going to have to keep dealing with the obnoxious red light cameras scattered throughout town. The Washington Missourian tells how one attorney tried to declare that the city’s red light camera laws were not harmonious with state red light laws. Missouri law prohibits vehicles from “entering” an intersection while the light is a steady red. The Washington ordinance issues fines if a vehicle is “present in an intersection” when the light is red. Uh oh. No wonder people keep slamming on their breaks at the intersections of highways 47 & 100 and highways 100 & A. I know I have run many a yellow light in my Danger Ranger. Now I’m more likely to slam on my breaks when I go back home to Washington. Watch out if you are driving behind me.

One eyebrow-raising tidbit from the article was the motion that a city counselor used to try (successfully) to get the judge to dismiss the case. The counselor claimed that because the plaintiff had not been charged with violating the ordinance, he had no standing to sue. The judge agreed, and forced the plaintiff to pay court costs. If I were him, the first thing I would do after leaving court is drive my car right through a red light camera intersection and wave to the camera.

There are also many other red light camera blog posts here at Show-Me Daily, available for your perusal.

… don’t fix it! There are a few policy areas in which Missouri is doing such a fantastic job that no changes are needed. If I had to make a list of them, I’d put homeschooling regulations at the top. Homeschooling families have complete freedom to choose curricula, teaching methods, and whether or not to administer standardized tests. They are required to keep a log of instructional hours, but the state doesn’t look at it unless there’s a complaint.

I was briefly homeschooled during high school, and at the time I whined about keeping that annoying log. Only after I researched the homeschooling policies of other states did I realize how lucky I was. In some states, homeschoolers have to justify every textbook purchase to their local school districts, or deal with routine harassment from government officials. Missouri’s homeschooling environment is much more free and open to different educational philosophies.

This article in the Columbia Missourian sums up the current state of affairs. It includes some quotes from people who’d like more regulation — and several from those who’d like things to stay the way they are. This is from Bert Schulte, the deputy commissioner of education:

“I think they would be resistant to government intervention or some kind of quality assurance. It’s one of those liberties that is available in Missouri that those who take advantage of it really want to preserve the autonomy of that liberty.”

The Missouri Board of Pharmacy is alarmed that Justus Drugstore: A Restaurant doesn’t employ a licensed pharmacist. In case you’re wondering, the unusual name refers to a drugstore that once existed where the restaurant now stands. The restaurant doesn’t employee a pharmacist because you don’t need one to prepare food, but the Board of Pharmacy says that if you’ve got “drugstore” in your name, you’d better have a pharmacist on site.

Here’s the reasoning behind that:

Several speakers representing pharmacist trade groups said the law was necessary to prevent unlicensed people and potentially illegal Internet drug retailers from fooling customers into thinking they were regulated businesses.

I would expect people to realize the restaurant isn’t a regulated drug retailer when they see the menus, plates, and napkins. Or when they see the word “restaurant” in the name.

Here’s what the restaurant has to say:

We believe real food raised with painstaking care by local small farm producers, prepared lovingly by skilled artisans served in an ambient beautiful space is an experience everyone should enjoy. If we can’t make it from scratch, we won’t serve it.

Doesn’t sound like a pharmacy to me.

Continuing my ongoing epic of examining the Renewable Energy Initiative, I stumbled upon an interesting section of the Missouri Clean Energy website. Apparently, if you give 10 of your friends’ and family’s email addresses to Missourians for Cleaner, Cheaper Energy, so they can spread the word, they send you a sweet free Missouri Clean Energy T-shirt. Now, I am currently in the process of getting to the bottom of whether this issue is worth my vote, but I’ll be danged if this awesome T-shirt doesn’t help the MCCE’s cause just a little. And I would just like to apologize to those 10 family and friends whose email addresses I gave out. Some of them comment on this blog frequently, so I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it from them.

While I should have posted something about this sooner, I’ll offer a brief account of Tuesday evening’s visit from Steve Levitt, the author of Freakonomics and one of the authors of the New York Times‘ popular Freakonomics blog. The event was jointly hosted by the Show-Me Institute and St. Louis University at SLU’s John Cook School of Business. An overflow crowd of more than 500 people came out to hear this bestselling author and University of Chicago professor offer his thoughts on how economic research can lead to wiser, more effective public policies. Professor Levitt was funny and insightful, recounting several stories from his first book and giving guests a whiff of his upcoming title, which he says will be called Superfreakonomics, in honor of Rick James. The lecture was part of a continuing series hosted by the Show-Me Institute, in which we strive to bring some of the top names in economics and public policy to help Missourians develop a deeper understanding of how these issues affect our lives.

For the past few weeks I have been researching and writing extensively about the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative. The issue will be on the November ballot and, if passed, will require Missouri’s four largest energy suppliers — Ameren, Empire, Aquila, and Kansas City Power & Light — to provide 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2015. So far, there has been little opposition to the bill, and even the power companies seem to be on board.

Now, being away at college and working in the Clayton office of the Show-Me Institute every day, it’s not surprising that I can forget my roots. So, when checking John Combest today, I was surprised to see my li’l old hometown, Washington, Mo., smack on top of today’s news. Washington’s newpaper, The Washington Missourian, has gone green and officially supports Proposition C — the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative.

Though the article is, not surprisingly, lenient toward the proposition (it claims there is no downside, even though rates will initially rise by a small percentage), it is good to know that even the people in my small hometown are taking time to find the best solution to the energy situation. Honestly, I guess the move toward renewable energy is not too surprising, considering just how many people in WashMo can see the Labadie coal plant from their backyards.

Traditional public schools and charter schools are sometimes presented as a stark dichotomy: broad education vs. specialized programs, neighborhood communities vs. citywide enrollment. Those generalizations are sometimes correct, but not all charters fit the mold.

For example, there’s City Garden Montessori, which was featured in the South Side Journal:

Any parent can stop by during the course of the day and they often do as most live nearby, said Michelle Marshall, the school’s family support coordinator.

The school has a preference for neighborhood students written into its charter. It seeks children living between Interstate 64 and Magnolia Avenue and Grand and Kingshighway boulevards in the Botanical Heights, Forest Park Southeast, Shaw, Southwest Garden and Tiffany neighborhoods.

Here’s a charter that wants to draw children from the surrounding area, like most public schools do, but that is innovative in other ways. City Garden offers a Montessori curriculum in both its preschool (which was established several years ago) and its new elementary school. I’m impressed, because many schools drop the Montessori focus by first or second grade, when it’s harder to put into practice.

The Post-Dispatch and Suburban Journals are doing a great job of profiling the area’s charter schools and illustrating what’s unique about each one. Stay tuned as new charters open!

Combest today has a number of links to articles about proposed changes to the Missouri Plan of judicial selection. In the very near future, I will blog in-depth about Congressman Hulshof’s proposals. In the meantime though, please check out the ideas for yourself. They’re covered well by this AP article in the Columbia Missourian (the other articles are also very good). Then please consider the ideas put forth in this Show-Me Institute study, released earlier this year, and my own op-ed about this issue, from last year.

My first response is that I think many of the proposals are worthy of serious consideration. They do not scrap the Missouri Plan and return to the use of elections for these positions, nor do they give too much power to any one entity. But more to come on this topic next week.

There is nothing more enjoyable when researching issues than coming across an article you think you are going to hate, and then discovering you’re completely wrong. I really don’t know why I assumed I’d dislike this column by Mary Jo Feldstein in the Post-Dispatch. Perhaps the opening line led me to make the wrong assumptions about it. But, anyway, it is an excellent article, and sort of a counter to the terrible piece by Bob Herbert that I blogged about the other day.

This is not to say that Feldstein’s column is in full agreement with the health savings account approach favored here at the Show-Me Institute. In fact, she raises some very interesting questions about them:

Research shows patients in these plans, particularly those with low incomes, sometimes avoid cost-effective preventive tests and prescription therapies because of their cost.

There is simply no magic potion to take our health care system and make it perfect. Last night we cosponsored the Steven Levitt (coauthor of Freakonomics) lecture along with St. Louis University, where the event was held. Levitt, in response to a question from a lottery-winning audience member who regularly runs for office, talked about health care. He believes that market pricing has to be put back into the system, and consumers and insurers are going to have to make tough choices about what people can and can not afford.

As Feldstein writes:

Patients should have a financial stake in their health and health care. But plans should encourage, not discourage, the wise use of limited resources.

I see her point perfectly. It is one thing for parents not to take their teenager, who only has a simple cold, to the doctor. That choice allows for more important uses of limited resources. To go further, it is unfortunate — but probably necessary — that dying elderly people do not receive every single expensive treatment possible. Remember when Mickey Mantle got a liver transplant and died soon anyway, after potentially taking away a precious resource (a functioning liver) that someone else may have used to live much longer? (Note: there is no proven evidence that someone other than Mantle died because of that transplant, but the decision to give the liver to him was still very controversial.)

It is another issue entirely for people with treatable conditions not to take their medicine because they are responsible for the first $2,000 of their costs before insurance kicks in, and they can’t afford it. I am not saying HSAs don’t work because of this issue, just that it is a reasonable possibility to consider. The great thing about Feldstein’s column is that it is a well-researched piece about a complicated issue, as opposed to Herbert’s uninformed broadside.