A little more than a month after consumers and neighborhood repairers packed a Massachusetts State House hearing room to urge passage of the Right to Repair legislation, the State Senate late Thursday evening strongly approved the measure.
In the Senate-passed legislation (S. 2204), car manufacturers are required to sell all non-proprietary repair information to local neighborhood car mechanics, repair shops and new car dealers so they can all repair vehicles using the same codes provided by the manufacturers.
To read the bill, click here.
“We thank Chairman Tom Kennedy and the legislation’s senate sponsor, Sen. Jack Hart. Without their leadership, consumers would still be waiting for this step," says Art Kinsman, a spokesman for the Right to Repair coalition.
"We are pleased to report to all of the state’s motoring consumers that because of the Senate’s action, their Right to Repair legislation is one step closer to bringing cost savings and convenience.”
More than 100,000 citizens signed the Right to Repair ballot initiative earlier this year. If the legislature does not pass a final bill, the state’s consumers may have another option: The Right to Repair Coalition has launched the next phase of its “Campaign for Consumers” and has begun gathering the final batch of 11,000 voter signatures required to get the issue on the November 2012 ballot.
