California Senate Urged to Reject Amendment Stripping State Regulator’s Telecom Authority
ACA 9 would make the the state's top broadband regulator more susceptible to industry capture, group warns.
June 5, 2026 – A national media advocacy group is urging California lawmakers to reject a proposed constitutional amendment it says would gut the state's primary broadband regulator.
S. Derek Turner, senior advisor at Free Press Action, sent a letter Tuesday to Benjamin Allen, chairman of the state’s Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, urging a “no” vote on ACA 9, which the group warned would likely eliminate the California Public Utilities Commission's oversight authority over broadband telecommunications services.
The California Assembly passed ACA 9 on May 18 in a near unanimous 67-1 vote.
Authored by Tasha Boerner, D-Encinitas, the amendment would remove the constitutional requirement to regulate telecommunications as a public utility and allow lawmakers to transfer telecom and broadband oversight to a new state broadband office. It now needs a two-thirds vote in the Senate before going to a statewide ballot.
“There is simply no good reason for the state to make such a radical change and to defang one of the country's most pro-consumer state telecom regulatory authorities,” Turner wrote.
Free Press Action argued the CPUC has a strong track record of stepping in where federal regulators have not.
“When the Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission abandoned its own regulatory authority, the CPUC was the sole state utility commission to join 22 state attorneys general to fight to preserve federal net neutrality protections,” Turner wrote.
The public utility commission also rejected AT&T's request to abandon its carrier of last resort obligations, protecting Californians who rely on traditional landline services, the letter notes.
The group also pointed to the CPUC's record on merger oversight, citing its reviews of the Verizon-Frontier and Sprint-T-Mobile deals, and its recent defense of the state's Lifeline affordability program against what Free Press Action called a “cynically partisan attack” by the current FCC chair.
Turner acknowledged that some telecommunications companies have pushed back against the CPUC's oversight, noting AT&T filed suit in May to stop offering traditional phone service in California, but argued the proposed amendment serves industry interests over consumers.
ACA 9, Free Press Action said, would make the telecommunications regulatory process “more susceptible to industry capture” at a moment when broadband has become an essential utility for all Californians.
