Includes interviews from Chobani, Levi Strauss & Co, KPMG, Match Group, Patagonia, Salesforce, and Starbucks
NEW YORK — Every U.S. business has an opportunity to meaningfully impact civic participation and the health of democracy, but there is no single model or approach that they must adopt. Based on exclusive interviews with its executive membership community, NationSwell released a report that provides a strategic framework to help employers customize their support of democracy around their unique contexts, goals, and capabilities.
“In a pivotal election year where democracy faces unprecedented challenges worldwide, businesses have the opportunity, as trusted pillars in society, to protect it,“ said Greg Behrman, Founder and CEO of NationSwell. “Despite pressures to back down from addressing societal issues, businesses must seize this moment to make civic participation a priority. This comprehensive resource is designed to equip business leaders with a strategic framework to support the health of our democracy in a way that is non-partisan, effective, actionable, and vetted by industry peers.”
NationSwell is an award-winning executive membership community and advisory that works with social impact, sustainability, and philanthropy leaders to help them to accelerate their impact, lead at their best, and meet the moment. The report is based on interviews conducted in the spring of 2024 with leaders from Chobani, Democracy Works, Einhorn Collaborative, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, KPMG, Latino Community Foundation, Levi Strauss & Co., Lyft, Match Group, Patagonia, Protect Democracy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Salesforce, and Starbucks.
Here is what is included in the report:
A strategic framework for employers
The customizable strategic framework in the report presents three goals for businesses to pursue:
Goal 1: Encouraging and enabling civic participation
Goal 2: Promoting information accessibility, transparency, and quality
Goal 3: Supporting issues that protect fundamental rights and strengthen democracy
Supporting guidance and materials for business leaders
The report contains detailed and practical elements that are aligned with advancing the three strategic goals:
Talking points for making the business case for democracy, sourced directly from business leaders and democracy experts
Tactical implementation guidance and dozens of real-world examplesshowing how businesses are promoting civic participation and a healthier democracy
Peer-vetted partner and collaborator recommendationsto help employers supplement their own strengths and pursue collective action
“At Salesforce, we understand that a healthy democracy depends on civic participation, and voting in particular. When citizens don’t vote, we increase the risk of unrepresentative government, low institutional trust, and further marginalization of minority groups. When citizens do vote, our government is more representative and accountable to their interests. High participation helps to legitimize the institutions we depend on for the regulatory and market stability our business needs.” – Margaret Taylor, Senior Director and Head of Public Affairs, Salesforce
“Our colleagues and communities will be exposed to information from a range of sources. One of the clearest ways we can foster trust is by providing high-quality information about the logistics of voting and information about the candidates and the issues they care about from trustworthy sources.” – Corley Kenna, Head of Communications and Policy, Patagonia and J.J. Huggins, PR and Communications Manager, Patagonia
“Our business depends on a healthy democracy, and a healthy democracy depends on voter turnout. It is in our interest to drive engagement by educating and motivating our audiences around issues rather than candidates.” – Joanna Rice, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Social Impact, Match Group
NationSwell Council Member Lori Choi, M.D., is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of I’ll Have What She’s Having, a Texas-based non-profit organization dedicated to breaking down systemic barriers that prevent hospitality workers — who are less likely to have health care than their counterparts in other industries — from getting the medical treatment they need.
Since the 2021 passing of SB 8, a Texas bill criminalizing abortions, Choi and her organization have accelerated their efforts to build coalitions and systems that support women and pregnant people in the industry seeking safe abortions.
Following the Supreme Court leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, a decades-standing precedent legalizing abortion in all fifty states, NationSwell spoke with Choi about what this moment means for our nation’s most vulnerable, why the work she’s leading matters now more than ever, and how anyone can get involved to support her mission to help uninsured and marginalized workers in Texas.
NationSwell: Thanks for talking today, Lori. Tell us about how your personal and professional journey led you to start I’ll Have What She’s Having.
Lori Choi, CEO, I’ll Have What She’s Having: I was living in New York and moved to Houston, Texas to train in surgery. Houston’s a known center for cardiovascular surgery. I’ve never regretted that decision — I just don’t think that I realized before I moved here exactly how conservative this state really was.
You hear stereotypes, but there’s no doubt that this state government was regressing, becoming more and more conservative, and there were some nutty things going on, and even being completely preoccupied with surgery training, the stuff would trickle through. And I found myself going around in a really grouchy mood all the time.
I finished training, and then my life was going pretty much as expected for an academic surgeon when Trump was elected. And by that time, I’d spent a lot of time with my husband’s peers, who were all in the food and beverage industry — that was my part-time job before medical school, and one of my first jobs after college.
This is an industry which is by and large uninsured, and very, very hard working. And the small businesses themselves, they don’t have large profit margins — so most are not able to provide benefits to their employees.
Here in Texas in 2011, there were some substantial changes made to family planning budgets in public health as a result of a tremendous change in the political makeup of the state legislature and the state Senate. They really pushed through a lot of budget cuts which were meant to attack abortion access — and they did this by shutting down family planning clinics.
And so we saw the writing on the wall for uninsured people, and we foresaw, with all those federal judgeships that were vacant at the time that Trump took office, we really could see the path to decreasing abortion access, which was already lousy in Texas in a lot of rural communities. So we decided to form our nonprofit, I’ll Have What She’s Having, which consisted of mostly chefs, restauranteurs, food and beverage workers, and several doctors.
NationSwell: Can you talk about your mission and how it took form?
Choi: Our mission was really to educate ourselves and our community on overcoming barriers to maintain our health and well-being, identify non-profit health care partners and raise funds for and awareness of their vital work, including women’s and mental health, and partner with professionals in science, medicine, sports and the arts to highlight the diverse coalition of individuals prepared to fight for a Texan’s access to high quality, affordable health care and reproductive rights.
The food community here is very beloved, and because of my husband and my backgrounds, I brought to the table those connections to both the medical center and food and beverage.
When we started, we raised the question of what participants wanted to raise money for — and it was really the restaurateurs and entrepreneurs who drove our efforts towards abortion protection. It didn’t come from me. Someone close to me really didn’t think it was a good idea for the volunteers’ careers.
The vast majority of Americans are quietly in favor of some form of safe and legal abortion. But these women were willing to put their names out there, to be the face of that pro-abortion majority. And to put their small businesses at risk. It’s quite common in liberal enclaves like New York or San Francisco to take a stand for abortion rights, but it really was quite unheard of for Texas.
But these young women were really adamant. They themselves had been patients of Planned Parenthood. And many of them — most of us — have been uninsured at one or more times in our careers. And they felt strongly that they wanted to make that stand.
I’m amazed by their courage. I know that some of them have suffered. One of our partners is a wonderful chef who, when she began to support abortion access, received death threats. We’ve had protestors show up at our events. After all they’ve been through with the pandemic, for these small businesses to stand up and make their voices heard at this crucial time, I think that should really motivate all of us to get outside of our comfort zones.
When we got started, we spoke kind of in euphemisms about abortion – we called it reproductive rights, women’s health. But in the summer of 2021, when SB 8, the Texas bill criminalizing abortion, got passed, we decided to change our language and start using the word abortion, talking about abortion as an issue of health care, of bodily autonomy, and how, until everyone in this country is guaranteed abortion access, 50% of our population doesn’t have the rights to decide what happens to their own bodies.
That lack of freedom is deeply disturbing to me as a citizen, as an individual. To have the government so involved in health care decisions, and discussions between a physician and his or her patient is, as a physician, deeply offensive. And now we’re preparing to return to a period of time prior to Roe V. Wade in which women routinely died of infection. And I really don’t see any way around that because states are putting in place legislation to criminalize even medical abortions. As long as that’s the case, pregnant people who don’t want to be pregnant will have no choice except to take serious risks with their lives. And we know from history what that means. It really is risky.
NationSwell: Why will the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade hit hospitality workers harder than workers in other industries?
Choi: The Texas government is profoundly hypocritical when it comes to this point. We have more uninsured individuals, men, women, and children than any other state in the country. We refused Medicaid expansion, which would have enabled some of our poorest citizens to access care.
Because of that, when people become pregnant, if they’re not insured, they’re less likely to have access to a physician at that point. And because of paperwork delays, people will often not see a physician until their second or even their third trimester. As a result, we have increased infant mortality, and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country — especially for women of color.
We walked into all of this because in 2011, when the Texas Legislature slashed the family planning budget, we actually saw 83 community clinics close in the next several years because that lack of funding meant that they weren’t unable to keep their doors open to provide low cost, quality care to women who weren’t insured.
So uninsured people with ovaries don’t have access to contraception. They don’t have access to consistent medical care to treat their chronic illnesses. If they become pregnant, they often are going to be a high risk for complications during and after pregnancy. If they have high blood pressure, if they have poorly controlled diabetes, these factors will really impact the health of their pregnancy. And if they are keeping the child, it oftentimes impacts the child health, as well as the health of the parent.
NationSwell: You mentioned that you moved away from saying “reproductive rights” and started to purposefully use the word “abortion.” What did that change for your organization?
Choi: As a woman in Texas, when we first got started, just to talk about anything between the belly button and the knees on a woman was really freaking people out. I mean, they just didn’t want to talk about women’s health, which is so strange to me. But we feel like we’ve really turned the corner on that part, at least. We advocate for mammograms, STD screening, cancer screenings — all of which involve pap smears that take place in this general region. But abortion is a procedure which one in four persons in the US with a uterus need during their lifetime. So, it’s very, very common. It’s very, very needed. And until we normalize discussion about all parts of it, including using the word “abortion” itself, it’s really, really difficult to get people to think about what individuals actually need.
Under conservative status quo, the majority of the responsibility for avoiding pregnancy has fallen squarely on people who have uteruses. So, until we normalize that kind of conversation, I really think it’s difficult for us to move forward. And until people voice their support for abortion, I think that the politicians are just not going to get it.
To say things like reproductive justice, reproductive healthcare, I just don’t think that we’re getting people to really think about what’s involved with that. And that’s part of the reason why we felt like we needed to change our language and to be part of that change for the community. We did see a decrease in press coverage for our events when we changed that language, but since the Politico article really is a wakeup call for everyone who’ve been ignoring the course of history, I don’t think the press can shy away from this discussion any longer.
NationSwell: What are some of the ways I’ll Have What She’s Having is taking action?
Choi: Most of the women we support are uninsured. I’m not actually certain how some of them are getting their contraception, but we’re really trying to encourage women to get that annual visit with their physicians, for people to go and have that preventive medical exam and get their care.
It’s not realized, but if you look at people who are born with an XY chromosome, the biggest cause of mortality for someone until they’re about 50 is trauma and accidents. But for people who are born XX, cancer actually becomes the leading cause of mortality in their 20s.
So it’s really important that we encourage people to go to the doctor, even at a young age. And we’ve really advocated for that. We have a small fund, which allows people from the restaurant industry to get that preventive medical care on an annual basis. And we’re trying to do more to educate people in the industry to stay well, rather than treat themselves when they’re sick.
We’ve also held a series of happy hours at different bars called Abortion Support. Historically, it’s been speakeasies and taverns where a lot of political activity and change took place. And we’ve been really appreciative how the bar owners in our community have been willing to take on that role here in Houston, and push that conversation forward.
Unfortunately, the Delta variant kind of took out those plans for the summer. So, we regrouped and we engaged in a social media campaign called the 1973 Project.
The restaurant industry loves masking tape — they take masking tape and put it on everything, they label all of their food behind the bar and in the walk-ins. And so we had a wonderful photographer, Emily Jaschke, work with us, and employees would put this blue tape or masking tape somewhere on their bodies with a pro-abortion slogan, post a photo, and donate $19.73 to our fund. So, with a matching donor, we were able to donate $60,000 after about six weeks of social media campaigning to the abortion funds across Texas in response to SB 8.
And with the upcoming expectation that Roe V. Wade is going to be overturned, we’re really trying to push and continue with that conversation. Engage more people on a national level so that they’re able to have their voices heard —because we can’t just wait till the election. I think it’s really important that we find a way for people to easily register their protests to the changes that are taking place.
NationSwell: What are some of the ways we can support your organization, and support uninsured women and people with uteruses in the hospitality industry?
Choi: I’ll Have What She’s Having can always use your help! We’re planning a national fundraiser in September in which we’ll be able to engage with people all over the country — and we’re interested in sponsorship for that. That’s going to be chefs getting together nationally to prepare a meal which can be sent around the country via FedEx or UPS. And we’re going to be able to use that money to distribute the funds nationally, especially to the states who are probably going to be having full abortion bans to help people that are going to need to travel to get that abortion care.
Right now, we are supporting six different abortion funds in Texas, and our September fundraiser will expand nationally. But when we speak to those abortion funds, the cost of their being able to support a single patient has just skyrocketed because they need to provide either bus or airfare, as well as usually overnight hotels stay for either one or two days. People who are leaving, the vast majority of them who need abortions already have children and family responsibilities. So, those organizations are also helping individuals get childcare so that they’re able to leave the state for care.
On top of this, we always encourage everyone to call our senators and congressmen to speak out in favor of abortion access. The Women’s Health Protection Act was passed in the House and then failed in the Senate. But that bill, when it comes up, would be a way for us to get around while we’re expecting SCOTUS to officially overturn Roe v. Wade in June.
It’s very important that we really come to this from a place of our shared humanity. It’s important that we say to state and national governments that we believe that bodily autonomy is a human right. And regardless of whether it touches me, or my siblings, or my parents, our loved ones directly or not, it’s just something that we understand and feel with all of our fellow humans that we have to stand up for this — now.
Recently, this commitment has come under attack. Former President Trump refused to concede the 2020 election, falsely insisting that it had been stolen from him — a claim he continues to make without evidence to this day. His dangerous rhetoric and actions led to the assault on the U.S. Capitol as Congress was counting the electoral votes to formalize President Biden’s victory.
While the certification was eventually completed, the event showcased how fragile our democracy has become. With the 2022 midterms just around the corner and the 2024 presidential election looming, there is no time to waste in shoring up our defenses against further degradation of the electoral process.
In a NationSwell conversation hosted by our Council, Nick Penniman, founder of the bipartisan political reform group Issue One, and former House Majority Leader Richard Gephart, who serves on the board of Issue One, discussed the threats facing the democratic process in the U.S., and what can be done to counteract these threats and ensure continuing free and fair elections.
Here are some of the most compelling insights from the digital event:
What is broken in our democracy?
Penniman highlighted four key issues:
Money in politics and a lack of civic education: Members of Congress can spend up to 50% of their time in office fundraising, rather than working on needed legislation. Oftentimes they will seek funds from lobbyists, who may have different priorities than those of a member of Congress’ constituents.
Gerrymandering: The overwhelming majority of House races are uncompetitive, essentially ensuring the winner of the primary a seat in Congress. This creates a system where candidates need only pander to the base, which in turn causes further polarization.
Media fragmentation and disinformation: More and more people are getting their news from hyper-partisan institutions, creating a disconnect among the population. In addition, the rise of social media allows people to publish, often anonymously, toxic and even false content.
Lack of civic education: Only 30% of Americans can name the three branches of government, Penniman said.
The immediate threat against American democracy
Penniman said that the most pressing issue in the upcoming presidential election is election subversion — the constitutional ability for one party to sign a slate of electors that is inconsistent with the popular vote. Through a combination of advancing restrictive voting measures in Republican-controlled state legislatures and installing partisan election officials, including secretaries of state, Trump allies have laid out an explicit plan to not certify election results in swing states won by a Democratic candidate. This would then throw the decision to the state legislatures, which are almost all controlled by Republicans. Penniman points out that the Supreme Court would likely allow this, based on the Bush v. Gore case where it was decided that the Constitution grants states this authority.
Efforts being made to counter these threats
Issue One has created the National Council for Election Integrity, which serves as a front-facing group that can push back against the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Issue One is also involved in pushing bipartisan legislation that would help make elections more secure. The most pressing of these efforts is an update to the Electoral Count Act, which would close any loopholes that would allow Congress to reject the results of the presidential election. A more long-term goal is to get social media platforms to rework their algorithms so that people are no longer fed distorted or inaccurate information. Finally, Issue One is pushing the Department of Justice to ramp up protection for election workers, many of whom have faced death threats in recent years.
Obstacles facing Issue One’s efforts
As Penniman noted, it would take billions of dollars to effectively research, formulate, and disseminate an effective counter narrative to the lie of the stolen election. This is simply an unrealistic fundraising goal. However, Issue One will look to recruit corporations to help with their efforts, such as when Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star Game out of Atlanta to protest restrictive voting legislation in Georgia.
What can you do to help?
Donating to key political races can be crucial. For example, keeping Democratic governors in power in swing states with Republican legislatures could serve as a firewall against any attempts to undermine or subvert the popular vote. Volunteering as an election worker or observer would also be helpful, as many former workers have quit since the 2020 election over the abuse they have faced. Volunteering would both help fill those empty roles and prevent partisan actors from swooping in to claim them.
the Federal Trade Commission began to explore the ways that manufacturers make it harder for consumers and independent repair shops to fix broken products. In May 2021, under the administration of President Joe Biden, the FTC released its findings to Congress. In its report, “Nixing the Fix,” the agency highlights the environmental and economic harm that has resulted from the ways that manufacturers discourage consumers from repairing broken products as a means of increasing revenue — calling on Congress to create federal regulations to prevent these manufacturers from doing so.
The FTC report comes amid a growing movement to that create a legal right to repair ensuring that manufacturers cannot interfere with — and, in fact, must facilitate — the ability for American consumers to pursue affordable repairs to the products they own, rather than discarding them and contributing to the 254 million tons of trash that the United States produces every year.
As part of our movement to surface solutions for a more Circular Economy, NationSwell spoke to Aaron Perzanowski, an intellectual property law professor at Case Western University. The author of a forthcoming book called The Right to Repair, Perzanowski is one of the nation’s leading legal expert on fair repair laws. Here’s what he had to say.
NationSwell: What is the right to repair, and why do consumers need that right?
Aaron Perzanowski, Right to Repair legal expert: So sometimes, you run into a problem where you need a particular piece of software or information in order to repair a device. For instance, if you have a busted optical drive on your PlayStation, you can’t just go buy a new optical drive and swap it out because the optical drive is paired with the motherboard on that device; you need special software in order to install a new one.
Right to repair laws would require manufacturers to provide repair shops, repair providers and consumers with all the parts, software, and information they need to actually fully repair the products that people own — in this instance, the special software you’d need to install a new one.
When people talk about the right to repair movement, they sometimes focus on these state legislative proposals that have been introduced in some 30 states across our country this legislative year. In some states, those legislative efforts are focused on consumer electronics, like video game consoles and smartphones; in other states they’re focused on agricultural equipment; in California, the bill is focused on medical equipment.
I think those are important laws; I support them. I’ve submitted testimony in various states to express support for those bills, but they’re just one piece of a much broader right to repair agenda. And that broader agenda is premised on the recognition that we as consumers, we as individuals, have an inherent legal and moral right to make use of the products that we buy — to exert control over the things that we own. And part of what it means to get the full use out of the products you buy is the ability to fix them if something goes wrong.
And historically, that has been the case. What we’ve seen over the last 20-plus years, is a set of increasingly aggressive restrictions on repair. Those include the way a product is built, what components are used, how they’re put together, the physical design, and then you layer on top of that software restrictions that lock people out of certain aspects of their devices and make it difficult, if not impossible, to repair them. And then you’ve got a number of market strategies, where companies charge very high prices for repair as a way to discourage people from repairing and encourage them to buy something new. You see companies that refuse to sell parts to third parties. You see authorized repair programs to control how many competitors are out there in the repair market. And the broader right to repair movement is focused on reestablishing this basic right of consumers to control the things that they own.
NationSwell: You mentioned increasingly aggressive restrictions. Who or what is restricting repair?
Perzanowski: Restrictions come in a number of ways. Sometimes it’s as simple as the way a product is constructed. So, take Apple’s AirPods, their wireless headphones. They’re designed in a way that makes them nearly impossible to repair. They’re fairly simple devices: It’s a headphone, and it’s a battery. And the thing that goes bad is the battery. You spend hundreds of dollars on AirPods, and for some people, six months, 12 months later, they can only hold a charge for 15 or 20 minutes. And because of the way they’re built, that battery is not user replaceable. The battery isn’t even replaceable by Apple. If you take it in for repair two weeks after you buy it and say, “Hey, the battery is busted on this thing,” they don’t fix it. They just give you a new one. And then they pay some recycler to shred those devices and recover whatever raw materials they can.
But Apple actually has to subsidize the recycling of those air pods, because it’s not cost-effective to actually go through that process — unlike a laptop, where it actually has some scrap value.
Software is also a big piece of this. So one of the biggest vendors here is John Deere. A John Deere tractor has dozens of computers in it. They’ve got all these electronic control units that control various aspects of this machinery. Let’s say you need a new turn signal for your John Deere tractor. You go out and buy a new turn signal assembly, and it’s authentic — it’s the real John Deere parts — and you replace it yourself, or you have your local mom and pop repair shop replace it.
Even though it’s authentic, even though it’s installed properly, it won’t work until a John Deere technician comes out with a laptop and blesses, authorizes, initializes, whatever language they want to use, that part. They need someone to do this little software ceremony in order to get that machine working. And you’ve got to pay them to do that.
So that puts John Deere dealers at a competitive advantage over the independent shops, because the independent shops can’t actually get your machine up and running, even though they’ve installed the part correctly.
Those are two obvious ways that this happens, but there’s a whole range of softer interventions, like the way that that companies price repair parts. Apple won’t sell repair parts essentially to anybody outside of their own authorized repair programs. And if you sign up to be an Apple authorized service provider, then you’re only allowed to do the repairs that Apple tells you you’re allowed to do. That means you can do things like replace batteries or screens on phones, but anything more complicated than that — and in fact, some things that aren’t terribly complicated, like replacing a broken camera in an iPhone — and Apple actually prohibits you from making those repairs. You’ve got to send those devices to Apple.
By denying people access to parts or conditioning access to parts on them agreeing, basically, not to repair repairable devices, companies like Apple get to control the repair market.
NationSwell:I imagine that the time-gating of sending something as vital as a smartphone away for weeks to be repaired might also disincentivize consumers from seeking repair from manufacturers.
Perzanowski: Absolutely, and it’s really problematic. There are cases where time really is of the essence. Let’s say you’re a farmer and your tractor breaks down, and you’ve got a two week period to harvest your crops, and you live hundreds of miles away from the nearest John Deere dealer. You’re facing a serious time crunch.
John Deere is not trying to get you to replace your million dollar tractor every time something goes wrong, but they know that once you’ve dropped a million dollars on the tractor, they can charge you pretty much whatever they want for repairs and you’re going to pay them when your livelihood depends on it. So they see service as a profit center. They see a real incentive there to crack down on these repair markets. And that, of course, has some spillover effects on other kinds of interests in terms of not just consumer welfare, but also environmental concerns and competitive concerns.
NationSwell: What are the environmental implications of right to repair, especially with respect to building a circular economy? And what are the implications of right to repair for local businesses?
Perzanowski: Circularity is certainly a significant improvement over the linear models that we saw throughout the bulk of the 20th century. And look, we should give companies credit. They are making investments in a more circular direction. Apple’s got these fancy robots that can extract rare earth metals from the engines of cell phones. And I think companies recognize that at this point, there’s actually an economic advantage to sourcing raw materials from discarded devices rather than mining them from the earth. And there’s a market for that, given that some of them have to deal with the horrible PR around a lot of the mining practices for some of the inputs to these devices.
What the right to repair does that I think makes the move towards a circular economy even more effective is that, in very simple terms, it lengthens the lifespan of these devices. Instead of keeping your phone for 18 months, and then the screen breaks and you ask yourself, “Hey, is it worth buying a new one, or is it worth repairing the old one?” the right to repair, by creating a more competitive market for repair services, by creating a more competitive market for replacement parts, changes people’s economic calculus in a way that makes them say, “You know what? I’m going to fix my phone and I’m going to keep it for another year or another two years.”
So instead of keeping it for 18 months, maybe you end up keeping it for three years. So if we’re talking about a circle, we’re stretching the circle out here by enabling repair. And I think that has the potential to have a really significant impact. One, because for the individual consumer, it gives them this option that they don’t really have today. And I think over time it has the potential to change people’s attitudes and the kind of norms and expectations around what’s reasonable in terms of the lifespan of a device — and that normalizes the idea that actually things should last longer, and it’s not normal to toss your phone out every 18 months. So I hope that that would have some impact on behavior.
The right to repair does not necessarily translate into the choice to repair, but it is a kind of a necessary precursor. Right now there are people who want to repair, but can’t. And in the future, it’s not to say everybody’s going to repair all their devices all the time, but I do think that we would see a significant increase. And there’s some pretty good empirical research out there, some that I’ve done, some that the European Commission has done that really supports the idea that if people are given the option, if people are given the right information, that they will choose to repair their devices and choose to buy devices that are more repairable.
NationSwell:Earlier in our conversation, you mentioned 30 states that have Fair Repair bills moving through their statehouses. I imagine that that number means that this isn’t just a blue state vs. red state issue, but that there is actually bipartisan movement around right to repair regulations.
Perzanowski: Absolutely. If you look at who’s introducing these bills across the states, you see these bills introduced and supported by Democrats and Republicans. This is not in any meaningful sense a partisan issue. And it’s because I think the goals and principles underlying these bills speak to values on both sides of the political divide. So Democrats might look at this and see it as an important environmental regulation. They might see it as a way of protecting the interests of less wealthy citizens — poor people generally rely more on repair. And some Republicans look at this, especially libertarian leaning Republicans, look at this as a question of individual autonomy, of the sanctity of personal property rights. And both Republicans and Democrats will look at this as a way of, especially in the current climate, a way of pushing back on what are largely big tech companies. They’re not the only companies that are in this space — I don’t know that we normally mention John Deere in the same breath as Google and Facebook — but I do think that there is an opportunity to craft a bipartisan, trans-partisan coalition here around these issues.
The problem so far though has been that the resources and lobbying efforts of trillion dollar companies have been pretty effective at scaring state legislators away from these bills. We’ve seen a bunch of these bills introduced this year, almost as many the year before, almost as many the year before that. And so far, none of them have been enacted, with the exception of an automotive bill in Massachusetts first in 2012, and then there was an update to it just last year to incorporate telematics information that cars are transmitting.
The hurdle here has been a real asymmetry of resources. Consumers don’t have paid lobbyists, so it’s hard to get your arguments in front of these state legislators. I got involved at the legislative level because part of what I was seeing was a lot of what I think are bogus and misleading worries about intellectual property rights that companies, and their lobbyists, and their trade associations were introducing at the state level — worries that state legislatures hear and think “Oh, this is going to be preempted by federal copyright law, or this is going to destroy trade secret protection.”
They’re state legislators, most of them don’t know anything about federal IP law, and that sounds scary, and there’s no one there that they trust to correct that record. So I put together a group of a dozen or so IP professors from around the country who signed onto a letter that we submitted in over a dozen states just trying to make sure that the record was clear around those issues.
They hear a lot of really scary stories about how it’s dangerous to replace the battery in your phone, and if you do it wrong, the phone’s going to blow up, and they’re concerned their constituents are going to be harmed as a result of right to repair laws, and then the company that made it is going to be sued for some massive tort liability.
NationSwell: In 2019, under the Trump administration, the Federal Trade Commission started to look into right to repair laws. It’s 2021, and under the current Democratic administration, they published their report, “Nixing the Fix,” which at least one publication characterizes as “blasting manufacturers for restricting the right to repair.” The FTC issues the report to Congress, they make it available to the public as well, and they basically call for a right to repair to be established at the federal level. Do you find that encouraging?
Perzanowski: I find it very encouraging. Less that this Congress will move to pass a bill immediately, and more that the FTC just issued direct and unequivocal support for the idea that these restrictions on repair are harming consumers, and it’s signaling its willingness to engage in some enforcement. The FTC is incredibly powerful when it wants to be. It can really shape the way the market works. It can really shape the behavior that companies engage in when they are clear that they’re willing to flex the muscles that they have. And up until this point, they haven’t really in the repair space.
And while the FTC has the power to target unfair trade practices, but so does the attorney general of every single state. If the FCC says it’s a problem, then I hope that that helps get the issue on the radar of the state level enforcement agencies, too, especially as a quick thing they can reference to combat the fear-mongering that lobbying might be doing to prevent them from regulating that space. One state is going to pass one of these bills legally giving consumers a right to repair. Eventually, there’s going to be a crack in this wall. And we’ll see what happens at that point.
To learn more about why we need more investment in creating a circular economy, read our introduction to this series.
20 year old Daunte Wright was on the phone with his mother when a Brooklyn Center police officer fatally shot him during a traffic stop.
His killing, the latest in a pandemic of violence against Black people, occurred just ten minutes away from where a trial is taking place for Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd.
Our hearts go out to Daunte’s family, his loved ones, and to the communities that are experiencing cultural trauma in the wake of his death. We join Daunte’s mother in calling for justice and accountability from the systems that continue to harm and kill Black people with impunity.
NationSwell continues to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the movement for Black lives, and we work actively to dismantle the white supremacist systems that perpetrate harm to Black lives, whether it be unjust and unchecked police violence or the disenfranchisement of Black voters.
To members of the NationSwell community and audience who are feeling pain right now, we are sending love and warmth. We hope you will rely on the power of this community for support.
