Insert nail-in-the-coffin joke here

(We're a little late to the party on this one but you will understand after reading the below why it is worthy of reporting out on)




A story we have been following for over 3 years appears to have finally reached a happy and just conclusion.


The good monks of Saint Joseph Abbey of Covington, LA, had been making simple un-adorned caskets as a means of income for the Abbey for over 100 years. The monks ability to make and sell these caskets didn't sit well with state agency that regulates such matters (You would not be surprised to learn that embalmers and funeral directors make up 8 of the 9 members of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors) and as a result the monks were given a cease and desist order by the Board regarding the Abbey's hand-crafted caskets as they were unlicensed... and cheaper than the government-approved caskets of Big Funeral.


The monks turned around and sued the Board 5 years ago under the 14th amendment which prohibits states from, "depriv(ing) any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."



Back in April, the federal judge hearing the case found the Louisiana state law by which the monks were being mandated to be unconstitutional. The court ruled that the Louisiana licensing law represented economic favortism in its effective barring of competition in that particular marketplace and that the law did not serve the greater interest of the citizens of Louisiana.


This was a classic case of regulatory capture where the moneyed interests of Big Funeral used the regulatory regime to eliminate competition and thus prop-up their expensive our-caskets-only business model.

However, Big Funeral did not go gently into the good night and instead appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supremes refused to hear the case letting the lower court decision stand.


Here's one of the monks commenting on the entire affair:

"I was hesitant at the beginning to file the lawsuit. But it's the best thing that could have happened to our business," Abbot Justin Brown of St Joseph Abbey told the Los Angeles Times.

"We had all this excellent publicity, and now we are selling more caskets than we had ever expected. I think a lot of people heard about our case against the funeral directors and decided to buy one of our caskets."

However small our part was, we have been more than happy to give this important case free publicity.


No god-awful nail-in-the-coffin jokes here, just a simple case closed on a battle and huge victory for free markets.


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Striking a blow for (economic) freedom

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Nearly 2-1/2 years ago we blogged about the legal travails of the monks of St. Joseph Abbey in Louisiana with respect to their efforts to construct simple wood caskets and to be able to sell the same to the public as a means of income for the Abbey.

The monks figured there would be a market for the simple hand-crafted caskets in which they had buried their brothers for centuries. Unfortunately, state licesnsing laws designed to protect larger funeral homes/parlors prevented them from doing so.


From PJ Media:

A state licensing law designed to protect funeral directors from competitive forces barred the monks from selling their caskets. The law required that the intrastate purchase of caskets be made only through state-licensed funeral directors at state-licensed funeral homes. This meant: unless the Abbey built or bought a funeral establishment with a layout parlor, a six-casket display room, an arrangement room, embalming facilities, and hired a full-time funeral director who had completed high school, 30 college credit hours, a one-year apprenticeship, and passed a test … the Abbey could not sell its caskets to customers in Louisiana.

The Fifth Circuit has now declared that law to be unconstitutional.

In St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille, the court ruled that the regulations violated both the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.

The court ruled that the Louisiana licensing law represented economic favortism in its effective barring of competition in that particular marketplace and that the law did not serve the greater interest of the citizens of Louisiana.

We use the term "rent seeking" from time to time and rent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to earn income by capturing economic rent through manipulation or exploitation of the economic or political environment, rather than by earning profits through economic transactions and the production of added wealth.

Not surprisingly, embalmers and funeral directors make up 8 of the 9 members of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors. Of course, it would serve in their best interests to rig the system in their favor. This is a perfect example of rent seeking where by it is the big dogs in the industry that are writing the laws in a burdensome and onerous fashion that tamps down competition and which force the buying public to pay top dollar (that they may or may not have) for funeral arrangements/proceedings.


The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rightly saw this case for what it was. This is a victory for the free market and thus a victory for small(er) businesses and the consumer public.


We've said it before but we will be glad to say it again: show us big business and we'll show you big government protection. They really do go hand in hand.

Quote of the day

Just sayin'...

“I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration.”

She continued: “If there’s any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico — now, if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn’t received as much support even as President Obama has from BP and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions why the administration didn’t get in there, didn’t get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don’t happen.”

More here from Left Coast Rebel and the slow-motion disaster that is ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico and the media's reaction to it.



Addendum #1: Uh-oh. The narrative turns.

Post-racial

In the wake of the trouncing the Republicans took back on Nov. 4th, there have been a few silver lininings as Anh “Joseph” Cao won Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District seat, defeating William “Cold Cash” Jefferson and retained the 4th Congressional Seat in western Louisiana as John Fleming squeaked past Democrat Paul Carmouche in elections that were delayed by Hurricane Gustav.

Cao represents the first Vietnamese-American in Congress, a fact you may not hear elsewhere. Cao came to the U.S. as a child after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and went on to earn degrees in philosophy, physics and law. That’s all?

Of course, the fact that Jefferson is under indictment charges for bribery, laundering and misusing his congressional office certainly helped (though, Jefferson was re-elected back in ’06 when these charges stood as well), the fact that this person of (a different) color won in a predominantly black and heavily Democratic district and in a region where political corruption is almost seen as a way of life, is remarkable.

Combine this victory with the Saxby Chambliss run-off victory in Georgia last week, which prevents a Democratic 60-seat majority, and you get a sense of the length of the Obama coattails when he’s on the ballot vs. when he’s not and which suggests there is still a pulse in the conservative Republican “brand”.

Louisiana is now home to a Indian-American Republican Governor in Bobby Jindal and a Vietnamese-American Republican congressman in Anh Cao. As we were saying, a few silver linings but few nonetheless.

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P.S. In linked article above, it gets to the 4th paragraph before mentioning Cao by name.