Lobbyists Descend On California To Scuttle Right To Repair Efforts

While U.S. consumer protection is generally a hot mess, one promising bright spot continues to be the bipartisan traction seen on right to repair issues. For decades, tech giants across numerous sectors have attempted to monopolize repair, making it harder and more expensive to repair things you own due to repair center consolidation, annoying DRM, and hard to find manuals and tools.

That's finally starting to change, with heavy pushes for right to repair laws on both the state and federal level. And while we've seen numerous successes, tech giant lobbyists have been attempting to counter the movement with no shortage of lies about how right to repair laws will make the public dramatically less safe and/or embolden sexual predators.

In California, State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton has sponsored SB 244, a law that would require every manufacturer of an electronic or appliance product to provide documentation and functional parts and tools on fair and reasonable terms." The goal: less expensive and more convenient tech repair options and less overall waste.

Such laws have massive, bipartisan support among the public. A Politico/Morning Consult poll last year found that 69% of registered voters support the right to repair, a number that jumps to 75 percent in tech-centric California.

But to survive, the law has to survive massive lobbying opposition from California-based tech companies keen on fattening their wallets by making independent repair difficult and expensive. Tech giants, including Apple and Google, have successfully helped kill several previous popular versions of this same bill:

Tech lobbyists have a huge presence in California," Elizabeth Chamberlain, the sustainability director of the repair company IFixit, tells me, and we know that the closer this bill gets to passing, the more they'll be working overtime."

Even if you get a bill passed that's often not the end of the fight. While New York State recently passed right to repair legislation with overwhelming public support, Governor Kathy Hochul immediately set about effectively lobotomizing the bill at industry behest shortly after it was passed.

Still, the momentum remains on the side of the public and reformers. The more companies try to monopolize repair and fight reform, the more annoyed the public gets, and the more public traction the movement seems to obtain.

Some companies, like Microsoft, appear to have realized they're fighting a losing battle and started supporting such laws. Others, like John Deere, seem to think they can bullshit their way around this impasse by pretending to support right to repair. But countless other companies, especially in sectors like medical care, have only doubled down on all of their worst impulses.