Nebraska state senator warns that Apple is opposing the state's proposed “right to repair” bill; similar bills are making their way through 7 other states
Apple is inventing new and interesting arguments to prevent you from fixing your iPhone: It's lobbying Nebraska lawmakers to kill …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Nebraska fight is an early skirmish in what becomes a years-long campaign: a state senator says Apple is lobbying lawmakers to kill the state's right-to-repair bill while similar bills advance in seven other states. The stakes are software locks and parts access that determine whether independent shops can fix iPhones at all.
The pattern holds over time — by May, lobbying records show Apple joined by Verizon and tech trade groups against New York's Fair Repair Act, and in 2024 an Apple executive opposes Oregon's stronger bill even after backing California's weaker one. Bloomberg's later tally finds half the bills across 27 states already voted down or dismissed.
First-order effects
- Nebraska lawmakers become the immediate decision point: Apple's lobbying directly targets whether the state's bill survives committee, and independent repair shops' ability to source parts and bypass locks hangs on it.
- Legislators in the seven other states with active bills now know the opposition playbook they will face — the same manufacturer lobbying effort is being deployed against each bill in sequence.
Second-order effects
- Opposition scales beyond any single company: New York's records show Verizon and tech trade organizations joining Apple, turning what looks like one firm's defense into an industry-wide front.
- Repair advocates answer with credibility of their own — security experts organized through Securepairs.org begin testifying at hearings to counter the safety and security arguments manufacturers use against the bills.
Third-order effects
- If the kill-rate holds — roughly half of bills across 27 states dismissed by 2021 — right-to-repair becomes a grinding state-by-state war of attrition where manufacturers outlast most legislatures rather than concede parts or tools access.
- The split Apple later demonstrates between opposing strong bills and accepting weaker ones points toward a structural endgame: industry-shaped, limited repair laws replacing comprehensive ones, leaving independent shops with partial access.
The trend: Right-to-repair is hardening into a sustained multi-state legislative battleground where coordinated manufacturer lobbying, not technical merit, decides which bills survive.