In response to Jon Fleischman’s August 23rd column entitled “AB 1215 – Mandating That a Fee Cannot Be Called a Fee – Seriously”, I would like to offer a different opinion. Although I’m a four-term Congressman, in a prior life I owned and operated a number of new car dealerships in California and am very familiar with California’s “price control” on the amount a dealer can charge to perform a host of work required by the state.

AB 1215, a bill currently before the California Legislature, would for the first time in 5 years raise the statutory cap the Legislature imposes on private dealer businesses to perform state-mandated title and registration paperwork, in addition to a plethora of other state-mandated requirements (for example, providing consumers “free” credit scores, other credit disclosures, tire chain notices, license bracket notices, etc.). Even with the increase, California would still have the second lowest cap in the country – most states have no cap at all. California imposes no such… Read More