Ford’s Free Market Fiasco

Recipe for a Roadkill

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat with his sights likely set on the governor’s mansion in 2026, took to the Assembly floor Wednesday with a grand notion: taming the wild stallion of supply and demand through legislation. His bill, aimed at price fixing on essential goods and services—food, medicine, and shelter—might sound noble at first blush, but if history’s any guide, we’d best start fine-tuning our recipes for squirrel stew and roadside jerky.

AB44, the latest addition to the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, strutted into the Assembly Committee on Commerce and Labor with all the pomp of a snake oil salesman promising eternal youth. It seeks to outlaw “fraudulent manipulation” that inflates prices beyond the “basic forces of supply and demand.”

A last-minute amendment tossed in clothing, internet access, telecommunications, and household utilities for good measure—because what’s a government overreach without a little extra reach? Of course, the response was about as warm as a Nevada summer.

Business groups, housing organizations, and telecommunications giants lined up to take their shots, warning that Ford’s proposal was little more than a rent cap in disguise. AT&T and T-Mobile, already under the thumb of federal regulators, saw no reason to invite more government meddling. The Vegas Chamber and Retail Association of Nevada raised their eyebrows at the vague language, pointing out that this could criminalize the function of a free market: setting prices based on supply, demand, and good old-fashioned competition.

Assemblywoman Melissa Hardy, a Republican from Henderson and a former sandwich shop owner, cut to the chase: “There are times when we have to increase prices.”

The simple truth of economics met with a lawyerly rebuttal from Ford, who insisted that “we want a specific statute that addresses price fixing in essential goods and services.” Because, as every good bureaucrat knows, the best way to fix a problem is to throw another law at it.

Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama of Las Vegas remained unconvinced that such a law was necessary. And Miranda Hoover, representing the Energy and Convenience Association of Nevada, warned that the bill would put everyday market activity under the microscope, making pricing decisions legally suspect.

Perhaps sensing that the room had turned against him, Ford waved away concerns, calling the opposition “a bit of hyperbole.” He assured everyone the bill wouldn’t cap prices unless raised “knowingly, fraudulently, or deceptively.”

Who gets to decide what counts as deception? Well, that would be up to the government, naturally.

But even Ford seemed to realize he’d bitten off more than he could chew. In a final attempt at compromise, he admitted he was open to amending the bill, even considering stripping out the provision that would let private citizens drag businesses into court over price hikes.

So, Ford wants to control the free market without calling it price control, regulate private industry without defining what counts as manipulation, and, when pressed, admits he might change the whole thing anyway. If this keeps up, Nevadans might want to start watching the roads a little closer—because “Food On Road, Dead” (F.O.R.D) might be the only thing left on the menu.