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Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. This is Jem. And Em. From In Our Own World Podcast. My Coutura Podcast Network and Coca-Cola celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with incredible content creators like Patty Rodriguez. I was born in East L.A. and I remember growing up, there was a small little shack in the apartment we lived at. And I would make that shack into a television studio. And there I would play pretend. I would pretend that I was a news reporter. And that's how I would spend most of my afternoons.
Pretending and imagining that one day I would be able to tell our own stories. Listen to Out of the Shadows hosted by Patty Rodriguez and Eric Galindo on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Coca-Cola. Proud sponsor of the My Coutura Podcast Network. Hispanic Heritage is Magic. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on the show, including your stories.
Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They're some of our favorites. And on this show, America is the star.
The American people are the star. Speaking of which, The Nostalgia Awakens is an exhibit featuring every action figure toy made by Kenner from 1978 to 1985 based on the original three Star Wars movies. The Star Wars toys on display are from Jared Roll, enthusiast and museum curator from Wisconsin. He and his brother Kevin owned many of the toys when they were children. As an adult, Jared collected the rest of the original toys. Here's Jared Roll to share the story of how Star Wars toys revolutionized movie merchandising, licensing and even how kids play.
Well, I guess we will go back to, you know, to the beginning, and that was in 1977. At that time, I was four years old and my mother is a fan of sci fi. She watched syndicated Star Trek episodes and she had learned of this movie called Star Wars that was coming out. By the time we saw it, it already had gained a lot of interest, a lot of hype. Star Wars was released in May of 1977 to only 32 theaters in the United States.
Just to put that in perspective. So 32 theaters. It's when The Force Awakens was released. It was it debuted in over 4000 theaters. So, again, there are people who have documented the story of Star Wars, you know, the little movie that could and how it just changed everything.
When that movie came out, there was nothing like it. It changed everything. It changed how we think about the relationship of toys and movies, merchandising, licensing, how kids play. I mean, it really solidified action figure toys. I mean, up to that point, toys were not licensed for movies like they are now. They just movies weren't around long enough to justify the cost for toy companies to invest in a toy line. So with the exception of some Evergreen licenses like Disney, Looney Tunes, you know, because they were around for decades and they had other ways of appearing. Unless it was a TV show, action figure and toy lines, they weren't made for movies. And so that's why when the Kenner Toy Company signed on to be the sole producer of toys for the Star Wars movies, they were taking a risk. If you would go to Wal-Mart today or Target or any place where toys are sold, you will see toys in the aisle for blockbuster movies before the movie even comes out.
That's a given. You want to just get the most out of it, help even create excitement for that property. But when Star Wars came out in 1977, kids like me who left the theater, we wanted toys for that movie, but there were no toys to be had. When George Lucas was in the process of creating Star Wars, he knew he had a story that would appeal to kids. So George Lucas shopped around the Star Wars license to the big toy companies first saying, you know, I've got a movie coming out. I can't tell you a lot about it.
I can't show you much about it because I'm keeping it a secret. But, you know, it's going to be science fiction and it's going to involve, you know, characters that I think will translate well into a toy line. And the bigger toy companies like Mattel and Mego, you know, they said it will pass. You know, there's too much risk involved. Quite frankly, you know, science fiction just really doesn't appeal to kids right now.
And so it's not worth our risk to do that. That's where the Kenner toy company enters the scene. Kenner at this point, they were a small toy manufacturer in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were a subsidiary of General Mills Foods. So if you've ever eaten Count Chocula cereal, that's the company we're talking about.
They were just the small toy arm of General Mills. And so they were willing to take a look at it. And it was just one of those stories where you just had the right people working for Kenner at the time that saw the potential of this movie. And being a smaller company, they have slightly less risk and they can be a little more nimble versus a giant toy company. And so Kenner Toys said, we will do this.
We can do this. They shared some product samples with Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm said, yeah, you know, we're on the same page when it comes to this. And so they signed an agreement with Lucasfilm and they were the ones to make these toys. You know, people will tell the story about Bernie Loomis being asked the question, you know, he was the president of Kenner at the time, what size should we make these action figures? And Bernie Loomis, well, stretched out his finger and his thumb and said, Luke should be this tall.
And that size was three and three quarter inch. The decision that Kenner made was based on the idea that they knew to make this toy line really, really catch on with kids. They needed to have a world for kids to play in.
They needed to have environments, you know, what we call play sets. They need to have vehicles for the figures that go in. And to do that, you can't do that inexpensively with a 12 inch toy line. Up to that point, up to 1977, 12 inch was a very common action figure or doll size for boys dolls or action figures.
GI Joe really started that, certainly solidified it in the 60s and early 70s. But they knew to have a Millennium Falcon, that you can't make a Millennium Falcon for a 12 inch Han Solo. It would be so expensive and retailers wouldn't want it for their shelves because it would dominate the entire shelf for itself. And so the three and three quarter inch line, you know, that made sense.
And Bernie Loomis made that choice to keep the figures to that smaller size for that reason. But it would take a full year before action figure toys were even available for that property. So when Christmas of 77 rolls around, kids like me, we want Star Wars toys for Christmas. Christmas is the time that we get our toys.
And unfortunately, Kenner, you know, even though they're all working nonstop weekends around the clock to try to get toys out as fast as they can, there's no way they can get them into the shelves in time for the holiday 77 season. And we're listening to Jared Roll tell the story of how a small toy company beats the big company to the market on the Star Wars toy franchise. When we come back, more of this remarkable story about Star Wars on Our American Stories. Go to our American stories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American stories.com. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible. Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop. But for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot.
And I stay cool and confident. They're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious. And there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done.
I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try All-Free Clear Mega Packs. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs.
Which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that All-Free Clear Mega Packs, they have your back. Purchase All-Free Clear Mega Packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we continue with our American stories and the story from museum curator Jared Roll. Let's pick up where Jared left off telling the story of how the small toy company Kenner took the offer from George Lucas to manufacture Star Wars toys after all the big toy companies passed on what seemed to be too much of a gamble. Kenner began production immediately but wouldn't have a single action figure on the shelves until a year after the first Star Wars movie premiered. But they had a plan. Kind of.
Here again is Jared Roll. So rather than miss out on all the excitement about Star Wars that Christmas, Kenner Toys, this is Bernie Loomis as the president at the time, he and his team come up with an idea and it was a very risky idea. And that was the sell an empty package to kids so that at least there's something to go under the tree that year. And what that was, it was called the early bird kit and it was approximately a 16 inch by 9 inch cardboard envelope, very colorful. And in the inside, all you had was a cardboard display arena with pictures of what the action figures will eventually look like.
There are just representations of the characters translated in the action figures so it's a little display arena. And then there's some stickers and, and then slip that you filled out and put in the, in the mail. And then it says, when these figures are available, you know, which is between February and June of 1978, you're going to get them, you'll get Luke, you'll get Leia, R2 and Chewbacca, the first four.
And so it was a real risk and and some people scoffed at the idea. It's like, where do you, where do you come up with the idea of selling an empty package for kids for Christmas that seems like a non gift. But yet at the same time for the people that did receive those for those kids that did receive those early bird kits under the Christmas tree. Right, it wasn't the figures, but it was the next best thing it was a promise for the figures, and at least it was something, and by all accounts the people that I spoke to personally who did receive one at Christmas time, or the accounts I've read. They were excited to get them, and many of them thousands were sold. And it's one of those just wonderful toy stories that has gone down in history about when Kenner sold an empty package to kids, when inside all you had was a promise, and that is, kid, you're going to be the first to get them when they're available.
They're just not ready right now for you. Merry Christmas. So, the early bird kit. If you can find one sealed, like unopened, we're talking five figures, you know I honestly they don't come up very often, you know, but if you have one, like I have one as part of the nostalgia awakens exhibit. I have the, the original envelope and thankfully the kid who opened it did a really nice job opening it just on the side just to kind of slip the side open just so carefully had pulled the contents out, and so it has all the contents yet. And you know that thing costs a few thousand dollars to buy at least it did when I had bought it, because again, it's cardboard is what you call ephemeral it's not meant to last forever.
Now, I did not get the early bird kit. As a kid. At the time I wasn't even aware of it as a kid, where, when I first started getting toys was when everybody else pretty much did and that was going to be in spring of 1978.
So I remember the day actually so I would have been five years old, just about five I yeah cuz I turned five in April, and it was springtime so it was warm out, and my mom and my brother and I were over at her friend's house visiting and my mother's friend's son, Jamie who is my age. He shows me a little Darth Vader action figure. And I bugged my mom said mom, they have toys of Star Wars now.
Can you take me to go get one and you know after enough haranguing, we eventually went to what we used to call the five and dime stores. And I still remember the creaky wood floors and walking in there and that kind of smell of a small town five dime store and walking in and seeing the display for Star Wars and walking really quickly up to it and just looking and scanning my eyes just to see what they made. And they're in this end cap is a selection of action figures you know I'm blister cards. And then we're just standing there and I would take one off I look at the back and then I set it in and just have to make a choice out and I didn't know which one, and I could only pick one, which is really hard because I don't know what you do with just one of them but at the time, I remember C3PO was there and, and R2D2 was there and a Sam person was there. But, but Luke wasn't there, otherwise I would have got him right away I'm sure, but Chewbacca was there. And so he was the one I picked, and I took him home, and he was my first Star Wars action figure and he's the one that started it all. And then from that point on, getting Star Wars toys was such an important part of my childhood, you know it was always on my radar.
You know if I could save any little bit of money, you know, and we would stop at a small you know at our store whatever grocery store that carried them, and they weren't very expensive they were originally they were under two bucks apiece so they're, you know, they're within purchasing power of a kid, but the real big, you know, big opportunity to start a collection would have been at Christmas of that year Christmas of 78. They were the ones that really gave us the toys or grandparents, and they would also get the Sears and JC Penny Christmas catalogs in October. And I remember that you're getting you know laying down on the floor, their carpeted floor in their living room and turning page by page, and just seeing those toys in there and just circling and circling and circling and of course you circle them all because you want them all that year that Christmas was wonderful because we received a lot of a lot of Star Wars product under the tree.
And that was amazing. Star Wars had such staying power in the late 1970s, I mean, we have to remember that it didn't just influence kids. You know kids toys and kids imagination it influenced everything.
You can look and see the influence on entertainment for example, Star Wars was parodied on Saturday Night Live, it was there were there were so many knockoff movies that were produced during that time, adults to adults love Star Wars as well it wasn't just kids it people back then, of all ages really fell in love with that story and when those characters. Everybody tried to cash in on the excitement surrounding Star Wars, so it was always there. It was always in front of us, trading cards and comic books. It lived on. So even if that if Star Wars left your local theater.
It lived on. I remember getting bubblegum cards of Star Wars and those were very important because that helped me as a kid remember that I could also learn more about the lore of the movie. And these cards would tell you who the, you know, the names of the characters, it'll tell you, like what was going on in that scene because it happens so fast when you're sitting in the theater, and I only saw it twice as a kid.
And so these cards helped fill in those gaps and really expand that story for me. And it was all Canon, it was all Star Wars it wasn't like somebody was making stuff up it was all there. And so that that helped Star Wars, stay in my mind. All throughout that time period, 77 7879 and then the excitement of Empire coming out, so it never it never waned. It was always there and part of it too I wonder is that because we were never fully satisfied. You know, when, when you're in my kids today.
You know when they see him. We go to the theater and see a movie, you know it's on DVD six months later and they'll watch it over and over and over and over again because it's a great movie. And then it's just kind of, you know, it's gone. And then you know the next great blockbuster comes along, I mean we live in a time period now where we have so much. So many wonderful stories being told of properties that we're excited about superheroes in space and things that you know that as a kid, this weren't there.
And so it. It has such staying power that and the anticipation of the sequel, we had to find out what happened next. And when we saw what happened next. And we find out that, you know, the good guys really losing this movie Hansel is frozen, Luke loses his hand and Darth Vader is his father.
Whoa, what's gonna happen next we have to wait another three years. What it was like a lifetime of waiting for that to happen. But it was always there and people making products made sure we were always reminded of Star Wars you know they they knew it too and so there was always something there to remind us. Oh, books on tape so we had as a kid I had a little storybook with a little cassette tape and I listened to that thing over and over and over again.
So I knew the movies well, not because I saw the movies a lot but because of all this other stuff that went along with it. And a great job as always to Greg Hengler Jared rolls story of Star Wars merchandising, and something more on America and American lives here on our American stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage, it can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner, and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs. My family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back.
Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we return to our American stories and now it's time for another rule of law story as a part of our rule of law series where we show what happens when there's either an absence or presence of the rule of law in our lives. Here's a story about a landmark case on economic freedom in the state of Texas.
My name is Wesley Hodet. I'm a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice. I've worked at IJ since I graduated from law school in 2008. And my first job was at IJ's then new Texas office in Austin. I was working there a little bit late one night.
I think it was around six thirty. And a couple of guys came into the office after everyone else had left. I didn't know them.
But I went out to the front and introduced myself. They were Ash Patel and Anver Ali Satani to business owners who said that they had a problem with the state and they wanted to know if I would agree to talk to them about it. From there I learned that their business was being threatened with being shut down because they employed eyebrow threaders. These are typically South Asian women who use a beauty technique involving nothing but a single strand of cotton thread. They put tension on that, form a kind of lasso, and it allows you to precisely remove hair around the eyebrows for beautification. And when Ash and Anver had set up their business, they told me they looked at Texas's cosmetology laws and saw nothing specifically about threading.
They plowed ahead like all good entrepreneurs do without asking permission. And it turned out that the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation had, after the fact, decided that they thought threading was cosmetology. It followed that everyone that worked for Ash and Anver needed a cosmetology license. None of them had one, and as we later discovered, the cosmetology schools weren't teaching threading or testing anyone. They were going to go learn other people's cosmetology techniques. They were going to go learn other people's jobs just to qualify to continue doing their jobs. And you're talking about women that had been doing this professionally for 30 years, discovering at the age of 40 that the state expected them to go back to school.
Now, we all understand that that could be impossible for a variety of reasons. We're talking nine months of schooling in a licensed cosmetology school. There are almost always private businesses at a minimum. For some people, it takes two years, depending on what license they're trying to get. You've got to pay that private business quite a bit of money.
You know, it usually ranges from like $7,000 to $15,000. You can't work while you're going to this school because, again, you've got to be there full time. You probably will, however, work for the private cosmetology school, which has people come in and pay for cosmetology services, but they keep the money. At the end of all of that, you have to take a couple of exams. There's almost always a practical component where you have to show that you know how to do the basic techniques.
And there's almost always a written component, like a test you would take in school about how bacteria grow, where different styles originated from, what people mean when they say things like a beehive or cornrows. So this is an example of what we call occupational licensing. It's the requirement that before you can do something to pursue a living, even though we all consider that thing to be legal, you need the government's permission. Now, there are a lot of professions that automatically come to mind when we think about occupational licensing. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and indeed the licensing of those professionals has been around for a long time. But in the 1950s in this country, it was about 5% of the American workforce that required some form of occupational licensing.
Today, it's much closer to 20%. And that has profound social and economic impacts, particularly for people who are on the margins of society and on the margins of where it makes sense to begin licensing people for things. Cosmetology is a good example of this because it's often the first rung of the entrepreneurship ladder, especially for people from other countries who don't have a lot of language skills and a lot of other opportunities, right? This is perhaps why you see recent Asian immigrants predominating in places like nail salons, or why you see recent African immigrants predominating in places like hair braiding salons. It's because they have a marketable skill that people will pay for.
It's just they've really only got one. And cosmetology licensing in the 20s might have been about basic sanitation, but as time has gone on, it's become more about incumbent control of the industry. I mean, in every state, there's a committee who has jurisdiction over an executive agency whose responsibility it is to regulate the cosmetology industry. Usually by law, that agency has to be run by cosmetologists. You know, everyone that's on the board of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, there's supposed to be at least some people who are cosmetologists, and some people who represent other walks of life. And so that agency will go to the relevant lawmaking committee and say, we think there need to be more restrictions on, for example, this new practice of threading that we're only beginning to see in our state. And the people who will be in the audience to sort of provide public comment will be beauty school owners and other cosmetologists.
And that means that the people who control the policy outcomes are the people who stand to gain or lose the most. And I mean, the motivation is obvious. You want to keep new competition out of the market so that you can charge more.
So their basic question that night was, can you help us? And, you know, I sort of gleefully said we might be able to, because I had been studying up on the Texas Constitution and was familiar with a line of cases on the one hand that provided very robust constitutional protection against irrational regulations like this. And on the other hand, I was aware of another line of cases that hewed much more closely to the federal constitutional standard for economic regulations, namely the rational basis test. Is there any conceivable justification?
And if there is, the economic regulation is constitutional. So I was aware of the tension between these two lines of cases, and I wanted a case involving an economic regulation that would allow us to tease them out. And I immediately saw the potential in Ashen Anver's predicament. And when we come back, more with our American stories and with Wesley Huddit.
And he's an attorney with the Institute for Justice defending Ash Patel, who runs an eyebrow threading business in Texas. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit uhcmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try All-Free Clear Mega Packs. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs. Which, my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that All-Free Clear Mega Packs, they have your back.
Purchase All-Free Clear Mega Packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we're back with our American Stories and our Rule of Law series and the story of the Ash Patel case as told by his attorney, Institute for Justice lawyer Wesley Hoddet. When we last left off, Ash Patel, a man who employed eyebrow threaders, had been told he'd have to shut down his operation and send all of his threaders back to cosmetology school for anywhere between nine months and two years of courses that didn't have anything to do with their craft. It seemed burdensome and there was a disconnect between Texas' laws and the federal laws on economic freedom. So, Wesley thought he might have a case.
Let's continue with the story. There was an uncertainty in Texas law. There was one line of cases that seemed to say we do something more than what the federal government does when a person complains about a regulation that's making it too difficult or impossible to support themselves. And one line said that the government needed to have robust reasons that lined up with the real world. In other words, under Texas' culture and traditions and laws, the government had to have a good reason for requiring a restriction on someone's economic rights. And that reason had to make sense in the real world.
I'll give you an example. There was a case from the 60s where a small Texas town had restricted the size of fuel tanker trucks that could come through the town. And the justification for that was that they were concerned about fires. What that required in practical terms was that the large tanker trucks that operate everywhere else had to stop outside of the town and transfer into two smaller tanker trucks, which the court recognized based on testimony at a trial was a huge risk of fire.
And having two trucks on the road that could go boom was worse than having one truck on a road that could go boom. So the court in that case, it's called Humble Oil, ruled that under the Texas Constitution, the law was unconstitutional. You couldn't require that sort of irrational justification. Now, under federal law, the story has been quite different since around the New Deal period. Under federal law, we currently have an understanding of the U.S. Constitution's protections for economic liberty as being very anemic, almost worthless. The federal constitution, the Supreme Court has told us, requires only some conceivable justification for a law. And so I think if we compare that to the Humble Oil case, the government's going to get a lot of leeway in determining the size of fuel tanker trucks because fuel tanker trucks go boom. And indeed, the federal case law bears out that kind of government may do anything reasoning.
So that is why when Ash and Anver came into my office and described their problem and said, can you help? That is why I was so confident that there was a there there because state supreme courts exist to resolve those kinds of conflicts within their own case law. You know, lower courts are supposed to know what the law is before they can apply it correctly. And if, as in Texas, you know, you have these two lines of cases, some of them hewing to federal constitutional standards and some of them hewing to the more robust Texas standards, then there is confusion that can lead to inconsistent results, depending on who your judge ends up being and where you end up filing your case. The whole point of bringing this case was to establish that under the Texas Constitution, there has to be a real and substantial connection between what the government is trying to do and how the regulation works in the real world.
And even if that connection exists, courts still ask, is the regulation unduly burdensome in light of what the state is trying to achieve? It seems maybe like there could be a real and substantial connection to health and safety. If you go to cosmetology school, you do admittedly learn things like washing your hands. But what Texas was requiring was 750 hours of instruction.
That's about nine months of a full time job. Two tests, neither of which had any material about eyebrow threading specifically or about sanitation specific to eyebrow threading. And so our argument all along was it takes about an hour to learn the sanitation that you need to learn to be a safe threader.
You need to wash your hands, use new thread with every customer and keep the work area clean. So it's just inconceivable that that could take 750 hours to learn. We never disputed that there could be a license for threading. It was just that this license, the 750 hour to examination requirement that didn't involve any instruction in threading was obviously unconstitutional. So, like so much of public interest law, this case started out with a loss. The state won. We appealed and we lost. The state won in the Intermediate Court of Appeals. And then we had to ask the Texas Supreme Court for what lawyers call discretionary review.
And they agreed to take the case. We won in the Texas Supreme Court by a vote of six to three. Now, five of those justices agreed with our argument that the state constitution requires a real and substantial relationship between a regulation and how it functions in the real world and also can't be unduly burdensome. They struck the law down based on that Texas test. One justice agreed that this law was unconstitutional, but didn't think that there needed to be an independent Texas test to make that ruling.
He thought the law violated the federal rational basis test because it was just so inconceivably justified. But, you know, there were three dissenters who were very vocal about the fact that they did not want to be reviewing economic regulations, did not take seriously Texas being different from the federal government in terms of its protections for economic liberty, and thought that it was perfectly fine that threaters were being required to spend nine months in a private beauty school learning nothing about their own jobs. Now, this was a huge landmark victory for IJ. It was obviously life changing for the clients in the case. It's an incredible feeling to have the patience to wait years from, you know, we launched this case in 2009, and we got a decision from the Texas Supreme Court in 2015.
It's about five and a half years from beginning to end, and it was mostly losing. So, you know, it's an incredible feeling to have that victory call with your client, but there's so much more work that needs to be done. I mean, this is one case in a sea of burdensome economic regulations that really require court intervention, and it's very difficult to get, you know, at least judges of the current generation to unlearn what they were taught in law school that there's no economic regulation that a court can strike down. You know, what is needed here is like what is needed in so many other aspects of American life today.
Nuance. Of course, it's true that the political branches have the right to decide who should get to practice what occupations, but it is also true that we should not allow them to do that at the behest of the regulated industry and only for their benefit. In the American constitutional order, courts are there to ensure that individuals' rights are being honored in the lawmaking process, right? And it's absolutely essential that there be more cases like Patel, where particularly state courts, but ultimately federal courts as well, take seriously the time-honored individual right to use your own labor, your own hands, to support yourself, free of any restrictions that aren't justified by a need that the public has.
Not a need that a particular lobbyist or lobby might have. And a special thanks to Monty Montgomery for his great work on the piece, and a special thanks to Wesley Hoddett, the Institute for Justice attorney, who you heard tell this remarkable story, this important story, another rule of law story in a part of our Rule of Law series here on Our American Story. What up?
It's Dramos. You may know me from the recap on LATV. Now I've got my own podcast, Life as a Gringo, coming to you every Tuesday and Thursday. We'll be talking real and unapologetic about all things life, Latin culture, and everything in between from someone who's never quite fit in.
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Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-15 15:16:30 / 2023-02-15 15:33:06 / 17
