BY DAVID DAYEN AND MATT STOLLER, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT
https://prospect.org/2026/06/10/organized-money-california-dreamin-of-a-slush-fund-for-uber
California is known as a bastion of blue-state values, but when you start to look at how the state’s legislative sausage gets made, you notice how completely borked America’s most populous regulatory state has become. Today on the show, we have Jamie Court, a consumer advocate and president and chairman of Consumer Watchdog, to break down California’s weirdness and some of his organization’s recent work.
First, we discuss how industries like insurance and ridesharing have captured so much of the state legislature, before homing in on how Uber specifically is running laps around its own regulators, with a fresh, bonus slush fund to boot. Then we discuss robotaxis and the role of the California insurance commissioner, currently held by the embattled Ricardo Lara, and how future commissioners might help untangle this morass. Finally, we get into why gas prices are so much higher in California than elsewhere in the United States. And no, gas taxes aren’t the whole story.
Listen to the episode below.
