It’s almost as if before he objected to them, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger didn’t bother to read the new rules imposed on cell
phone providers early this summer by the California Public
Utilities Commission.
It’s almost as if before he objected to them, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t bother to read the new rules imposed on cell phone providers early this summer by the California Public Utilities Commission.
“This measure will impede growth in the highly competitive wireless industry and could result in companies shifting investments and jobs outside of California,” Schwarzenegger said.
And what, exactly, did the governor so vehemently oppose?
Rules requiring cellular companies to post their rates on the Internet, tell customers their privacy rights and their right to join the do-not-call list to prevent unwanted solicitations that would use up their monthly supply of minutes, refrain from deceptive solicitations of their own, allow a 30-day trial period for new customers and credit payments the day they are received.
Pretty simple stuff, all of which amounts to a basic ethic of doing business honestly. It could be argued that any company unwilling to observe such elementary rules of decency to its customers shouldn’t be doing business in California, period.
The cell phone lobby, of course, didn’t see it that way. “These rules are unnecessary,” said Steve Largent, the former all-pro football player and Republican ex-congressman who is chief lobbyist for the cellular industry as head of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Assn. He predicted the rules would increase prices and reduce customer choice if one of the six major cell phone providers in California were to depart the state.
His claims where echoed first by Allen Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, who griped that “We are extremely disappointed that the PUC has decided to regulate the highly competitive wireless industry …”
Was it a coincidence that Schwarzenegger’s words were almost a precise echo of the chamber’s? Maybe not, since the governor invariably seems to march in lockstep with the chamber’s efforts to limit consumers’ rights to sue companies which produce defective products, pollute or deceive and defraud customers.
Maybe that’s because chamber members provided much of the $18 billion in political funds Schwarzenegger has raised since his election last fall. That’s about three times what ex-Gov. Gray Davis gathered in a similar post-election period when there was no reason for anyone to contribute – other than trying to influence a new governor.
Yet, no one shouts “pay-to-pay, pay-to-play” at this governor, the way Republicans constantly did while Davis was in office. Meanwhile, pay-to-play is just as real a phenomenon today as it was under Davis.
Cell phone providers affected by the new rules adopted over Schwarzenegger’s objections have put more than $100,000 into his various political committees. Consumer advocates who backed the rules gave little or nothing.
And then there’s the substance of the governor’s complaint – that the new rules will drive prices up and drive some carriers out of California. It’s true that today’s six major carriers are about to drop to five. But not because of any new rules; rather, it’s because Deutche Telecom’s T-Mobile brand is about to absorb Cingular – or perhaps simply adopt the Cingular trademark and kill off its own as the former NationsBank did when it took over the Bank of America.
How can anyone object to a 30-day trial period for cell phone service? In many cases, customers have no way to know how good service will be, how thorough a carrier’s coverage of their home area is, until they sign up and try it. Up to now, they’ve had no protection when they sign up only to discover they can’t make calls from their homes or from some heavily traveled stretches of highway.
And why shouldn’t deceptive marketing be prohibited?
Even Schwarzenegger didn’t object to the substance of the rules, said the PUC commissioner who wrote them. Rather, the governor’s problem was with the “psychological significance” of any rules at all.
Which means Schwarzenegger would prefer California to become a free-for-all, laissez faire state where businesses have carte blanche to prey on customers to their hearts’ content. That, of course, is consistent with his opposition to regulation of health maintenance organizations and his drive to deregulate electricity despite the disastrous consequences in 2000-2001, the last time that was tried.
Which leaves open the question of whether Schwarzenegger has been bought and paid for by the interests whose regulation he so strongly opposes, or whether he merely has a visceral opposition to anything that protects consumers, regardless of how obvious the need may be – as it is with cellular phones.
