The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

Thanks in part to your support, the right to repair is now law in Washington.

Gov. Bob Ferguson signed two bills guaranteeing Washingtonians’ right to access tools, parts, and information so they can fix personal electronics, appliances, and wheelchairs. This is the epitome of common-sense legislation. When you own something, you should have the final say about who fixes, adapts, or modifies it—and how.

When you own something, you should have the final say about who fixes, adapts, or modifies it—and how.

Advocates in Washington have worked for years to pass a strong right-to-repair law in the state. In addition to Washington’s Public Interest Research Group, the consumer electronics bill moved forward with a growing group of supporting organizations, including environmental advocates, consumer advocates, and manufacturers such as Google and Microsoft. Meanwhile, advocacy from groups including  Disability Rights Washington and the Here and Now Project made the case for the wheelchair’s inclusion in the right-to-repair bill, bringing their personal stories to Olympia to show why this bill was so important.

And it’s not just states that recognize the need for people to be able to fix their own stuff.  Earlier this month, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll issued a memo stating that the Army should “[identify] and propose contract modifications for right to repair provisions where intellectual property constraints limit the Army’s ability to conduct maintenance and access the appropriate maintenance tools, software, and technical data – while preserving the intellectual capital of American industry.” The memo said that the Army should seek this in future procurement contracts and also to amend existing contracts to include the right to repair.

This is a bedrock of sound procurement with a long history in America. President Lincoln only bought rifles with standardized tooling to outfit the Union Army, for the obvious reason that it would be a little embarrassing for the Commander in Chief to have to pull his troops off the field because the Army’s sole supplier had decided not to ship this week’s delivery of ammo and parts. Somehow, the Department of Defense forgot this lesson over the ensuing centuries, so that today, billions of dollars in public money are spent on material and systems that the US military can only maintain by buying service from a “beltway bandit.”

This recognizes what millions of people have said repeatedly: limiting people’s ability to fix their own stuff stands in the way of needed repairs and maintenance. That’s true whether you’re a farmer with a broken tractor during harvest, a homeowner with a misbehaving washing machine or a cracked smartphone screen, a hospital med-tech trying to fix a ventilator, or a soldier struggling with a broken generator.

The right to repair is gaining serious momentum. All 50 states have now considered some form of right-to-repair legislation. Washington is the eighth state to pass one of these bills into law—let’s keep it up.