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>With 395,608 regulatory restrictions, California is the most heavily regulated state in the nation, according to the report. On average, states have 135,000 re

>With 395,608 regulatory restrictions, California is the most heavily regulated state in the nation, according to the report. On average, states have 135,000 regulatory restrictions in administrative rules, with California's regulations more than doubling the national average. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-11-03/which-state-has-the-most-regulations https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-11-03/... I wonder how many they've added in 5 years. Do all these laws improve peoples lives?

tikhonj 4mo ago
Regulations aren't fungible, so this is not a particularly meaningful perspective.
mc32 4mo ago
I hope they refactor and harmonize them at some point to reduce duplication, contradiction as well as proliferation.
vrganj 4mo ago
All of them? No. Some of them? Yes. Some examples: * ARL / Automatic Renewal Law: If a company allows you to sign up for a subscription online, they also must provide an immediate, straightforward way to cancel it online. * SB 478: No bullshit junk fees tacked on to prices. Any price displayed, be it for concerts, hotels, or whatever else, must be the full, out-the-door price. * SB 244: Right to Repair: Electronics and appliance manufacturers must make diagnostic tools, manuals etc available for at least 7 years after manufacture.
- WaxProlix 4mo ago
  Does SB478 apply to car dealerships? That would be a huge boon to consumers on its own.
  - luisln 4mo ago
    Car dealerships were exempt from SB 478. However, California's CARS Act, which took effect July 1, 2025, prohibits misrepresentations about the costs or terms of purchasing, financing, or leasing a vehicle, including the availability of vehicles at an advertised price.
    - fhn 4mo ago
      which would already be covered under general fraud
  - wildzzz 4mo ago
    Dealers should be required to list the title/plate fees and their processing fee but stuff like dealer options and markup are required to be on a seperate sticker. America has such an aversion to including taxes on a listed price so I doubt that will ever be included.
- bofadeez 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - galleywest200 4mo ago
    > * Just look at the actual checkout price like everyone else Why should I have to go through the entire process just to see the price? Have you ever been in a store that has the tax added onto the price tag? It is very nice to not have to do mental math.
    - morkalork 4mo ago
      What, you don't run through the checkout process on each of 100 different Airbnb listings and compile a spreadsheet of results to ascertain the true prices after fees and charges? That's gotta be the best part of vacation planning after buying plane tickets!
    - roenxi 4mo ago
      Because it isn't very important and the more degrees of freedom the seller has the more likely they are to do something to make the whole process cheaper for customers. Although it does seem appropriate that everyone should know the price of something before they buy it, as long as it happens before the money is handed over that is fine.
      - vrganj 4mo ago
        > the more degrees of freedom the seller has the more likely they are to do something to make the whole process cheaper for customers. I think this is the crux of our disagreement. In my experience, the more degrees of freedom the seller has, the more chances to fuck you over they have. I think - and this might be my European perspective and maybe why we feel differently about regulations than Americans - the main source of risk is corporations trying to take advantage of you, not the government. Curbing said risk through regulations is a core part of good governance.
        roenxi 4mo ago
m4ck_ 4mo ago
Well despite all that regulation, they're an economic powerhouse, they must be doing something right. CA is far from perfect but at least they occasionally aspire to do something for the benefit of their citizens - not something I can say for my 'least regulated' state that mostly just saps money from the federal government.
- lostmsu 4mo ago
  > they're an economic powerhouse Could be inertia.
  - fhdkweig 4mo ago
    I know nothing about nothing, but I always assumed that all the money was from Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Outside of those two highly localized industries, is there really much more money than other states have?
    - matwood 4mo ago
      It has it's own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
      - fhdkweig 4mo ago
        Thanks for providing it, but Sectors chart seems wrong. "The Information sector includes some of the nation's largest technology and entertainment companies like Apple, Meta, Disney, and HP." Putting Disney in the Information sector rather than the Arts and Entertainment sector seems like a really bad categorization. I have to wonder if that severely under-counts the Arts and Entertainment sector.
    - tzs 4mo ago
      Its agriculture industry is about 50% larger than that of the #2 agricultural state. It also has the largest manufacturing industry. It is #3 in defense (about 20% behind Texas and 12% behind Virginia, and almost twice as big as #4 which is Florida). It is #2 in financial services behind New York.
matwood 4mo ago
Because of the power CA has, many of the regulations they pass around health and safety end up benefiting other states because it's cheaper to simply implement it nationwide.
rconti 4mo ago
Is there a reason to think these should or should not scale with size of population?
tzs 4mo ago
At first you might think "How the heck can a state have so many regulations!?". Even the ~40000 regulations of the states with the least regulations might seem like a lot. How the heck are people supposed to be able to keep track of all those regulations so they can avoid violating them? But if you look closer there is a hint to what is going on. According to the US News article these are the 10 most regulated states: California, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana. These are the 10 least regulated: South Carolina, Michigan, Wyoming, Kansas, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho. Note: the US News article says they had to omit some states due to limited availability of data. Also that list is from 6 years ago. I found a later list without those omissions. It is mostly the same, with the addition of some of the states the US News list had to skip, and the order is quite a different in the two bottom 10 lists. Combining the lists these are the most regulated states (in alphabetical order): California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. These are the least regulated: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming. One thing that stands out about the first list is that most of them are major players in a variety of major industries. The second list doesn't seem to be nearly as diversified. I bet if you dove into the details of regulations this would be a big factor. The top list has more regulations simply because they have more to regulate. In any given field they don't necessarily have more regulations than other states, but they have more fields that are big enough to need regulation. More diversity also means more conflict between different industries which will tend to increase the need for regulation. A key aspect of this, and why we aren't overwhelmed with just keeping up with regulations, is it is the breadth of the regulatory systems that leads to the high counts. not the depth. You only have to deal with a few branches in this wide tree. For example the US News article says that the most regulated industry is administrative and support services, such as unemployment services, collection agencies, and call centers. All of us not involved in such services can pretty much ignore that big chunk of regulation. There is a similar thing with the federal tax code. The Internal Revenue Code is around 7000 pages, and the Federal Tax Regulations are another ~70000 pages. But a lot of that is because of the breadth of the US economy, and another contributor to the size is that the government uses per industry tax incentives and penalties as a way to encourage or discourage things that they want to influence. The net result is the tax code and regulations are full of things that 99% of taxpayers (individual and business) can completely ignore.
randycupertino 4mo ago
> Do all these laws improve peoples lives? The salary requirement for job postings has been AWESOME. Saves so much time and you can see if your company is paying market rates, realize if you are underpaid etc. Definitely made my life better. Other states are following suit! Employers hate it, haha. California, Colorado, NY, Illinois, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota and Hawaii all have this law now.
- Cider9986 4mo ago
  Glad to hear it. Another common-sense law I want is a holiday for elections so that more people can vote.

tikhonj 4mo ago

Regulations aren't fungible, so this is not a particularly meaningful perspective.

mc32 4mo ago

I hope they refactor and harmonize them at some point to reduce duplication, contradiction as well as proliferation.

vrganj 4mo ago

All of them? No. Some of them? Yes. Some examples: * ARL / Automatic Renewal Law: If a company allows you to sign up for a subscription online, they also must provide an immediate, straightforward way to cancel it online. * SB 478: No bullshit junk fees tacked on to prices. Any price displayed, be it for concerts, hotels, or whatever else, must be the full, out-the-door price. * SB 244: Right to Repair: Electronics and appliance manufacturers must make diagnostic tools, manuals etc available for at least 7 years after manufacture.

WaxProlix 4mo ago
Does SB478 apply to car dealerships? That would be a huge boon to consumers on its own.
- luisln 4mo ago
  Car dealerships were exempt from SB 478. However, California's CARS Act, which took effect July 1, 2025, prohibits misrepresentations about the costs or terms of purchasing, financing, or leasing a vehicle, including the availability of vehicles at an advertised price.
  - fhn 4mo ago
    which would already be covered under general fraud
- wildzzz 4mo ago
  Dealers should be required to list the title/plate fees and their processing fee but stuff like dealer options and markup are required to be on a seperate sticker. America has such an aversion to including taxes on a listed price so I doubt that will ever be included.
bofadeez 4mo ago
[flagged]
- galleywest200 4mo ago
  > * Just look at the actual checkout price like everyone else Why should I have to go through the entire process just to see the price? Have you ever been in a store that has the tax added onto the price tag? It is very nice to not have to do mental math.
  - morkalork 4mo ago
    What, you don't run through the checkout process on each of 100 different Airbnb listings and compile a spreadsheet of results to ascertain the true prices after fees and charges? That's gotta be the best part of vacation planning after buying plane tickets!
  - roenxi 4mo ago
    Because it isn't very important and the more degrees of freedom the seller has the more likely they are to do something to make the whole process cheaper for customers. Although it does seem appropriate that everyone should know the price of something before they buy it, as long as it happens before the money is handed over that is fine.
    - vrganj 4mo ago
      > the more degrees of freedom the seller has the more likely they are to do something to make the whole process cheaper for customers. I think this is the crux of our disagreement. In my experience, the more degrees of freedom the seller has, the more chances to fuck you over they have. I think - and this might be my European perspective and maybe why we feel differently about regulations than Americans - the main source of risk is corporations trying to take advantage of you, not the government. Curbing said risk through regulations is a core part of good governance.
      - roenxi 4mo ago

m4ck_ 4mo ago

Well despite all that regulation, they're an economic powerhouse, they must be doing something right. CA is far from perfect but at least they occasionally aspire to do something for the benefit of their citizens - not something I can say for my 'least regulated' state that mostly just saps money from the federal government.

lostmsu 4mo ago
> they're an economic powerhouse Could be inertia.
- fhdkweig 4mo ago
  I know nothing about nothing, but I always assumed that all the money was from Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Outside of those two highly localized industries, is there really much more money than other states have?
  - matwood 4mo ago
    It has it's own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
    - fhdkweig 4mo ago
      Thanks for providing it, but Sectors chart seems wrong. "The Information sector includes some of the nation's largest technology and entertainment companies like Apple, Meta, Disney, and HP." Putting Disney in the Information sector rather than the Arts and Entertainment sector seems like a really bad categorization. I have to wonder if that severely under-counts the Arts and Entertainment sector.
  - tzs 4mo ago
    Its agriculture industry is about 50% larger than that of the #2 agricultural state. It also has the largest manufacturing industry. It is #3 in defense (about 20% behind Texas and 12% behind Virginia, and almost twice as big as #4 which is Florida). It is #2 in financial services behind New York.

matwood 4mo ago

Because of the power CA has, many of the regulations they pass around health and safety end up benefiting other states because it's cheaper to simply implement it nationwide.

rconti 4mo ago

Is there a reason to think these should or should not scale with size of population?

tzs 4mo ago

At first you might think "How the heck can a state have so many regulations!?". Even the ~40000 regulations of the states with the least regulations might seem like a lot. How the heck are people supposed to be able to keep track of all those regulations so they can avoid violating them? But if you look closer there is a hint to what is going on. According to the US News article these are the 10 most regulated states: California, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana. These are the 10 least regulated: South Carolina, Michigan, Wyoming, Kansas, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho. Note: the US News article says they had to omit some states due to limited availability of data. Also that list is from 6 years ago. I found a later list without those omissions. It is mostly the same, with the addition of some of the states the US News list had to skip, and the order is quite a different in the two bottom 10 lists. Combining the lists these are the most regulated states (in alphabetical order): California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. These are the least regulated: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming. One thing that stands out about the first list is that most of them are major players in a variety of major industries. The second list doesn't seem to be nearly as diversified. I bet if you dove into the details of regulations this would be a big factor. The top list has more regulations simply because they have more to regulate. In any given field they don't necessarily have more regulations than other states, but they have more fields that are big enough to need regulation. More diversity also means more conflict between different industries which will tend to increase the need for regulation. A key aspect of this, and why we aren't overwhelmed with just keeping up with regulations, is it is the breadth of the regulatory systems that leads to the high counts. not the depth. You only have to deal with a few branches in this wide tree. For example the US News article says that the most regulated industry is administrative and support services, such as unemployment services, collection agencies, and call centers. All of us not involved in such services can pretty much ignore that big chunk of regulation. There is a similar thing with the federal tax code. The Internal Revenue Code is around 7000 pages, and the Federal Tax Regulations are another ~70000 pages. But a lot of that is because of the breadth of the US economy, and another contributor to the size is that the government uses per industry tax incentives and penalties as a way to encourage or discourage things that they want to influence. The net result is the tax code and regulations are full of things that 99% of taxpayers (individual and business) can completely ignore.

randycupertino 4mo ago

> Do all these laws improve peoples lives? The salary requirement for job postings has been AWESOME. Saves so much time and you can see if your company is paying market rates, realize if you are underpaid etc. Definitely made my life better. Other states are following suit! Employers hate it, haha. California, Colorado, NY, Illinois, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota and Hawaii all have this law now.

Cider9986 4mo ago
Glad to hear it. Another common-sense law I want is a holiday for elections so that more people can vote.