June 18, 2013 9:29AM # Federal Judge to Kentucky Bureaucrats: Stop Prohibiting Free Competition By [Ilya Shapiro](https://www.cato.org/people/ilya-shapiro) --- SHARE Last Thursday, a federal district court judge issued [an injunction](http://blog.pacificlegal.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Bruner-TRO.pdf) blocking the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet — the genteel name given the Bluegrass State’s department of transportation — from enforcing the state’s anti-competitive licensing law for movers. In *Bruner v.* Zawacki, which is being litigated by Cato adjunct scholar Timothy Sandefur and our other friends at the [Pacific Legal Foundation](http://www.pacificlegal.org/), small business owner Raleigh Bruner argues that the licensing laws, which allow existing moving companies to file “protests” to block new companies from opening, create a “Competitor’s Veto” that has no rational basis. Judge Danny Reeves ordered the state not to enforce those laws, at least until he has the opportunity to issue a complete opinion — but he strongly indicated that he already thinks those laws are unconstitutional: > The Sixth Circuit has held that “protecting a discrete interest group from economic competition is not a legitimate governmental purpose.” And it appears that the notice, protest, and hearing procedure in the statutes — both facially and as applied — operate solely to protect existing moving companies from outside economic competition. The defendants have admitted that they know of no instance where, upon a protest by an existing moving company, a new applicant has been granted a certificate.… \[O\]ver the past five years, no protest filed has been regarding an applicant’s safety record. Likewise, no applications have been denied on the grounds that the applicant was a danger to public health, safety, or welfare. You can read more about the case at PLF’s [Liberty Blog](http://blog.pacificlegal.org/2013/kentucky-federal-judge-bars-state-from-enforcing-its-anti-competition-law/). ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).