We live in a world shaped by invisible forces that affect us in very real ways: inflation, interest rates and global supply chains. But there are other invisible forces we rarely name — even though they quietly drain family budgets and harm entire communities.
I call these forces the “Unfairness Tax.”
It’s not a tax you vote on. It doesn’t appear on your paycheck. But it takes money out of your pocket every day.
The Unfairness Tax is the additional cost you pay when corporations break the rules. And as we mark National Consumer Protection Week, March 1–7, it’s time to look at these unfair practices in a new light — not as isolated incidents, but as systemic harms that the county of San Diego has the ability to address.
You pay the Unfairness Tax when pollution from the Tijuana River Valley makes us sick, shuts down beaches and businesses and drives up healthcare costs — while corporate polluters evade accountability.
You pay it when a medical bill arrives loaded with surprise charges, or when insurance companies deny care that your doctor already approved.
You pay it when seniors, veterans and families are targeted by financial scams; when renters are hit with junk fees and “gotcha” charges; when digital subscriptions auto-renew without consent; or when your phone bills skyrocket with no explanation.
This isn’t inevitable. For decades, Americans relied on strong federal consumer protection agencies to referee the marketplace and enforce basic fairness, making sure that big bullies don’t cheat and steal from working families. But as those agencies have been weakened, defunded or stretched across more cases, local harms go unaddressed.
Meanwhile, corporate misconduct has become more sophisticated: algorithmic scams, AI-driven insurance denials, predatory fintech products that mimic traditional subprime loans and mortgages, and junk fees designed to extract maximum profit from people with the least margin for error.
Fairness is a core American value — but it doesn’t enforce itself. And when no one enforces it, the costs don’t disappear. They just get transferred to ordinary people.
That’s why San Diego County is stepping in.
This spring, I will formally propose the creation of a Consumer Fairness and Public Protection Unit — a dedicated county-based watchdog designed to crack down on predatory practices, recover money for residents, and hold even the most powerful corporate actors accountable when they break the law.
Housed in the County Counsel’s Office, the unit would bring together attorneys, investigators and analysts with one job: enforce the rules that protect the public.
The Consumer Fairness and Public Protection Unit would focus on real harms San Diegans are facing right now, including cross-border pollution like the Tijuana River crisis, abusive healthcare billing and insurance practices, and financial scams and deceptive fees that disproportionately target seniors, renters, veterans and low-income families.
Our region has talented prosecutors, nonprofits, community organizations and the District Attorney’s office, all of whom are already doing heroic work, oftentimes alongside federal and state enforcers who are stretched thin. Even with their combined efforts, the enforcement gap continues to widen as the scale and sophistication of modern consumer abuses surge. Individual lawsuits are too slow, too expensive, and too fragmented to deter corporate misconduct at scale. And private litigation can’t fix systemic practices that harm thousands of people a few dollars at a time. County government is the last remaining line capable of closing this gap.
San Diego County already has the legal authority to take on large-scale consumer deception — and so far, we’ve chosen not to use it. Under a new state law, public attorneys in large counties can sue on behalf of consumers who’ve been misled.
Our peers across California are already doing this: San Francisco’s City Attorney runs a dedicated affirmative litigation program targeting deceptive practices, like food companies that obscure health risks. Los Angeles County Counsel enforces consumer protection laws against unfair business practices and false advertising. Yet San Diego County remains the only qualifying jurisdiction in California whose county counsel is sitting on this power.
An empowered San Diego County Counsel can be a force multiplier: as the District Attorney keeps delivering major wins (like the successful case against Apple for deliberately slowing down your old iPhone), the County Counsel can target broader patterns of consumer deception that may not be a priority for criminal prosecution but are ripe for civil enforcement.
These units often pay for themselves. Across the country, civil enforcement efforts regularly recover more in penalties, settlements and restitution than they cost to operate — not counting the savings when families avoid bankruptcy, homelessness or medical crises caused by fraud and abuse. Think of it as preventive care for the economy.
Creating the Consumer Fairness and Public Protection Unit is how we restore that basic bargain and show that our community is willing to do something when predatory fees are costing San Diegans their time, money, and peace of mind.
Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer is chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors
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