DCentric

I don’t think I can phrase this better than Will Singer did on Twitter, so I’ll just quote him: the following is a news story “in which white folks from Baltimore compare the injustice of DC professional licensing to that of the Dred Scott case”:

Whenever Tonia Edwards leads a Segway tour to the Capitol…she continues to the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, which has become a place of particular interest for local tour guides – especially Edwards and her husband, Bill Main, who own and operate Segs in the City. Last week, the couple joined the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian law firm, in filing a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the District’s tour-guide regulations, which make it illegal to lead a paid tour in Washington without a license.

The $200 licensure process, which includes a multiple-choice exam on Washington history, violates those First Amendment rights, Edwards says: “They’re telling me that I have to be licensed to talk to my customers? That’s a real violation of my right to free speech.”

Of the people who take the exam, 91% pass it; it’s not difficult. But let’s get back to the part where tour guide operators who don’t take the easy test are compared to slaves denied U.S. citizenship (I can’t believe I just typed that):
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