Carl DeMaio, a libertarian
Republican
running to represent San Diego in Congress, is offering up a
campaign proposal to use the strings the feds attach to funding to
protect ride-sharing services like Lyft and Uber from abusive
regulations on the state level. His latest move comes hot on the
heels of San Diego’s Democratic state Assembly Rep. Ben Hueso
getting snagged with a DUI just hours after voting for more
restrictions for ridesharing services in the state.
Without referencing Hueso—whose brothers own a taxi
company—directly, DeMaio still manages to stick a thumb in his eye
when he says, “My proposal would prevent unfair monopolies by big
cab companies with undue political influence and would ensure fair
and open competition while giving individual consumer’s freedom to
decide which transportation service is best for them.”
His proposed legislation would have three components:
- Require any state or locality that accepts federal transit or
transportation funding to allow ridesharing services to compete
freely with traditional cab companies - Require any airport that receives federal funds to allow
ridesharing services to drop off and pick up passengers - Instruct the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress
within 18 months on implementation and safety statistics of
traditional cab companies versus ridesharing programs
Not sure how to feel about the anti-federalist angle. As awful
as California is, should we really be looking to the federal
government to save voters when they fail to hold state legislators
accountable for the terrible decisions they make?
He is also angling his campaign clearly with millennials in
mind, pointing out how popular the services are with the under-40
crowd. Read more
here.
(Full disclosure: DeMaio is an independent contractor for the
Reason Foundation research division’s pension reform project.)
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