CPIL Submits Letter in Opposition to AB 2483 (Voepel) to Senate Judiciary Committee

Sacramento (June 20, 2018) – The University of San Diego School of Law's Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) submitted a letter, with others, to the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to AB 2483 (Voepel), unless amended. 

CPIL along with Responsive Law and California Public Interest Group, Inc., strongly urged committee members to oppose AB 2483, unless it is amended to include important provisions to protect the public from potentially anticompetitive behavior by professional members of regulatory boards, and ensure that taxpayers are not left financially responsible for board members’ violations of federal antitrust laws.

AB 2483 aims to address the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, __ U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 1101 (2015) (“North Carolina”). That decision recognizes the inherent conflict of interest that exists when a state licensing board is controlled by members of the profession regulated by that board. Therefore, it holds that boards are not immune from federal antitrust scrutiny unless 1) they are controlled by public members (and not licensees) or 2) the state has created a mechanism to actively supervise the acts and decisions of these boards to ensure they benefit the public, and not merely the professions themselves.  In other words, the state must take appropriate steps to ensure that regulatory boards are, in fact, fulfilling their statutory mandate to prioritize public protection above all other interests. 

Today—over three years after the North Carolina decision, and although many of its boards are in fact controlled by members of the regulated profession—California has yet to implement any of the safeguards the Supreme Court prescribed to ensure its boards are in full compliance with the antitrust laws.  Now, rather than implement reforms that would obviate the likelihood of antitrust liability in the first place, AB 2483 would instead simply indemnify any Board members who violate the law! 

Under this proposal, consumers would be doubly harmed: first, by higher prices due to anticompetitive policies imposed by the offending boards; and, then again, as taxpayers on the hook to pay the bill.  This is not only unjust, but also unnecessary.

To read the letter in support in its entirety please visit CPIL’s webpage.

About Center for Public Interest Law

Founded in 1980, the University of San Diego School of Law’s Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) serves as an academic center of research and advocacy in regulatory and public interest law. CPIL focuses its efforts on the study of an extremely powerful, yet often overlooked, level of government: state regulatory agencies. Under the supervision of experienced public interest attorneys and advocates, CPIL law student interns study California agencies that regulate business, professions, and trades.

CPIL publishes the California Regulatory Law Reporter, a unique legal journal that covers the activities and decisions of over 12 major California regulatory agencies.

In addition to its academic program, CPIL has an advocacy component. Center faculty, professional staff, and interns represent the interests of the unorganized and underrepresented in California’s legislature, courts, and regulatory agencies. CPIL attempts to make the regulatory functions of California government more efficient and visible by serving as a public monitor of state regulatory activity. The Center has been particularly active in reforming the state’s professional discipline systems for attorneys and physicians, and in advocating public interest reforms to the state’s open meetings and public records statutes.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

The University of San Diego (USD) School of Law is recognized for the excellence of its faculty, depth of its curriculum, and strength of its clinical programs. Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 35th nationally and 6th on the West Coast among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 24th nationally and 6th on the West Coast in all-time faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, nonprofit, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.