A federal judge sided with freedom, common sense and good hair last month, when he ruled the state of Texas has no business regulating hair braiding.

It’s a start; the Texas Legislature should follow suit by eliminating some of the other onerous and burdensome licensing schemes that serve no useful purpose.

“Texas laws that regulate businesses that teach African hair braiding are unconstitutional and do not advance public health and safety or any other legitimate government interest, a federal judge ruled,” the Dallas Morning News reported in January. “Isis Brantley, a Dallas woman who runs a hair braiding business inside a Dallas community center, sued the state in 2013, saying laws related to her school were unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

The state wanted her to open a fully licensed barber college — just to teach hair braiding.

“U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks in Austin ruled Monday that the regulations excluded Brantley from the market ‘absent a rational connection with … fitness or capacity to engage in’ hair braiding instruction,” the News explained. “Sparks wrote that he found the various rules requiring hair braiding schools to become fully equipped barber colleges ‘irrational,’ citing as one example that licensed braiding salons don’t need sinks because washing hair is not involved in the braiding process.”

It’s a great first step, but there’s still a long way to go. There are currently 150 business activities that require a state-issued license before they can be legally performed in Texas.

Sure, some are important — everyone wants medical doctors to be licensed, for example.

But why does the state require licensing for interior designers? How many incidents of unlicensed, malicious couch-moving have been reported? Were there injuries?

Nursery florists need a license. So do travel guides. And auctioneers.

“Texas is also one of only five states to license shampooers, requiring a worker to pay $128 in fees and to pass two exams in order to wash somebody’s hair,” notes the Institute for Justice. “In Texas, it takes just 33 days of training to earn a license as an emergency medical technician. But it takes substantially more to become a licensed massage therapist (117 days), manicurist (140), skin care specialist (175), cosmetologist (350) or barber (350).”

An occupational license is the government’s approval to work in a particular field.

“To earn the license, an aspiring worker must clear various hurdles, such as earning a certain amount of education or training or passing an exam. In the 1950s, only one in 20 U.S. workers needed the government s permission to pursue their chosen occupation,” the Institute explains. “Today, that figure stands at almost one in three.”

Lawmakers can do much good in the coming session by examining many of these licensing schemes, determining which are serve a legitimate need, and which are merely barriers to Texans working for themselves. We shouldn’t wait on federal judges to impose common sense on the state’s licensing laws.

Economic freedom comes from government getting out of the way. That should be the Legislature’s real goal for 2015.