Arizona Engineering Licensing Oral Argument
- Greg Mills is an engineer with decades of experience designing, building, and testing electrical circuits for major manufacturers in Arizona. After years of working for others, he started his own engineering consulting company to serve startups and small businesses. Greg is doing the same exact type of work he did as an employee of a big company. But because he now works for himself, the Arizona engineering board says he needs an engineering license and is threatening to shut him down.
- This is illogical. If Greg is qualified to work as an engineer for a major manufacturer, he is qualified to work as an engineer for himself and small startups. Greg is partnering with IJ to stand up for his constitutional right to call himself what he is—an engineer—and to practice an occupation he’s done safely for more than 30 years.
- After a lower court ruled that Greg’s case had to be dismissed at the pleadings stage because the state claimed its regulations furthered a “safety, health and welfare” interest, and Greg was not allowed to demonstrate facts that would rebut the government’s claim, IJ appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court. Arizona judicial decisions used to meaningfully protect economic liberty by demanding that state regulations have “an obvious and real connection between the actual provisions of a police regulation and its avowed purpose” and prohibited regulation “oppressive” in application. In short, the Arizona Constitution prohibited “unreasonable” regulations, and “reasonable” depended on the facts of the case. But those precedents had been forgotten over time as the courts, without explanation, began to follow federal “rational basis” law that rubberstamps government regulation. IJ argued that, to give full meaning to the Arizona Constitution, the Arizona Supreme Court needed to abandon the “lockstep” approach and reembrace its original, more protective, precedents. Oral argument was held on March 10, 2026, and we await a ruling.
Attorney Who Argued The Hearing
Paul Avelar
Managing Attorney of the Arizona Office
about the case
Economic Liberty | First Amendment | Occupational Licensing
Lawsuit Challenges Arizona Engineering Licensing Law
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