The California Chamber of Commerce has launched a sustained statewide public awareness campaign highlighting the devastating economic impacts of a misguided legislative proposal to change California’s landmark antitrust law.
The multimillion-dollar effort builds on CalChamber’s ongoing opposition to Assembly Bill 1776 (Aguiar-Curry; D-Winters), a bill that would expose businesses of all sizes to a wave of frivolous lawsuits — while supposedly solving a problem that the bill’s supporters have never identified after some six months of public hearings.
The campaign’s initial 30-second ad highlights how AB 1776 would raise prices, kill customer discounts and price matching programs, and create substantial compliance burdens that could bankrupt small business owners and wipe out jobs in communities across the state.
The economic impact of Assembly Bill 1776 would be long-term if it became law, threatening some $1 trillion of California’s gross domestic product and 1.6 million jobs in the first decade. That, in turn, would likely exacerbate the state’s projected long-term budget deficit.
A diverse group of business, advocacy organizations, and local chambers of commerce oppose AB 1776. Twenty-five professors at California universities have urged the Legislature to reject the bill, arguing in part that it would represent a “severe and untested departure from established antitrust principles.”
CalChamber’s public awareness campaign will continue throughout the remainder of this year’s legislative session, urging Californians to “tell Sacramento we can’t afford AB 1776.”
