The Administrative Law Trap
What many people are starting to understand is that maybe the government, local, state, and Federal, don't seem particularly concerned with protecting the Constitutional life of the men and women, many times often outright dismissing or outright violating our Constitutionally secured rights.
Many of these bureaucrats are power hungry, were promoted because they were "yes" men and women, or they played the politics game very well, or they fit the right demographics, but not because they were interested in protecting and defending your rights as a man or woman, especially as a professional man or woman.
Reminder: this website only covers the rights of mental health professionals, but many of these principles, cases studies, laws, situations also may apply to a vast array of professions and activities, not just counseling, therapy, and psychology.
Case in point: the "rules", "regulations", and "statutes" governing engaging in certain activities without a license. The governments state, often in the occupations code (a code is not a law), that one cannot engage in the practice of counseling, therapy, psychology unless they have a license, often with criminal penalties for doing so.
So they say, "you can't practice this kind of speech unless you have a license." Then you go get the license, and the same state governments say, "because you're a professional, we have the right to regulate your speech more strictly than if you were doing this for free."
See the trap?
"You can't enjoy certain rights without a license."
So you go get a license.
"Then they say now we have the right to regulate you."
Of course, we know from the earlier post that the Constitution of the United States secures our right to free speech, which is reflected in Supreme Court case Murdock v. Pennsylvania:
"A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution. Thus, it may not exact a license tax for the privilege of carrying on interstate commerce,"
According to the plain language of the Constitution, and the court decision above, it is unconstitutional for the state to require one to have a license to exercise any right secured by the Constitution.
Every once in a while though, the mask slips, and you can see the truth comes out that they have little to no authority over someone who doesn't have a license though this drives these bureaucrats up the wall.
A colleague a while back who managed a counseling center told me about a counselor working for him who had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a client. The counselor in question was fired from his job, but then terminated his own license. My colleague reported the counselor in question to the state board, and the state board responded that they had no jurisdiction over him because he terminated his own license.
In another example, in an interview with WFAA in Dallas, Texas BHEC Deputy Director Darrel Spinks let the cat out of the bag:
Do you see?
From the horse's own mouth.
According to Deputy Director Spinks, the state licensing board has no jurisdiction over unlicensed professionals. They can revoke a license, and that's it. If you ignore their orders, they can only revoke your license. And as I mentioned before, under the Constitution of the United States, and reflected in the opinion of Murdock v. Pennsylvania, no man or woman needs a license to exercise their right to free speech and free assembly. You can read more about that here.
