Used car dealers didn’t want to fix deadly defects, so they wrote a law to avoid it

arlos Solis never knew he was driving with a “shrapnel bomb” inside his steering wheel.

By the time Solis was killed in 2015, similar accidents were piling up nationwide amid an unprecedented series of recalls for an array of dangerous defects – from shrapnel-flinging airbags to ignition switches that shut off engines. During a two-year investigation, the Center for Public Integrity, USA TODAY and the Arizona Republic found thousands of similar pieces of legislation and retraced a number of them to their root. Many were written by corporations or special interest groups that stood to benefit directly. Some are pitched as public-service measures.

The bill also gives auto dealers a potent new legal argument when trying to fend off lawsuits by implying that, with recall disclosure, it’s legal to sell recalled used cars.In California, the bill was called the Consumer Automotive Recall Safety Act.

Jim Appleton, a New Jersey-based lobbyist who once chaired the Automotive Trade Association Executives, said there’s nothing questionable about auto dealers’ push for their bill. The measure, he said, simply clarifies that they should disclose open recalls to customers while avoiding more stringent requirements that could devastate their businesses by sidelining much of their inventory for months on end until recall repairs are completed.

First, General Motors recalled more than 2.7 million cars in 2014 for faulty ignition switches, which have caused more than 120 deaths and 250 injuries nationwide. In California, Bakersfield resident Tammy Gutierrez sued CarMax for selling her a recalled used car. The landmark case was initially dismissed by the court, but an appeals court reinstated it last year, ruling that Gutierrez had a valid claim under state laws.The first bill surfaced in New Jersey in September 2014, when Assembly Deputy Speaker Paul Moriarty introduced a measure that included a $20,000 fine for failing to disclose open recalls to customers.

Behind the push for Moriarty’s bill was Appleton, the lobbyist who heads the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, an influential Trenton lobbying group whose political action committee has given more than $1.6 million to state legislative candidates – including $14,400 to Moriarty – since 2000.

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