Farmers, Phones and Tractors: Why Right to Repair Crosses Party Lines

Picture a combine stopped in the middle of a wheat field in eastern Colorado at harvest time, its owner standing beside it with a phone to his ear. The machine is worth more than his house. Something has thrown an error code, and the fix might be a sensor that costs less than a tank of diesel. But the software that would clear the code and let the combine run again is locked, and the only people with the key work at a dealership an hour or more away, which has a waiting list, because every other farmer in the county is harvesting too. The grain does not wait. On April 25, 2023, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill meant for this farmer. It required manufacturers to provide agricultural equipment owners and independent repair shops with the parts, tools, software and documentation needed to fix their own machines. It was the first law of its kind in the country. Democrats carried it through the legislature, but the people it was written for included plenty of farmers who had never voted for a Democrat in their lives.

In short: Right to repair laws require manufacturers to make parts, tools and information available to owners and independent shops. The cause unites farmers, rural Republicans, urban tinkerers, environmentalists and small repair businesses against a shared opponent: companies that use software locks to control what you can fix. The argument here is that repair is one of the clearest cases of common ground in American politics, and a model for how to build more.

The tractor became a computer

Fifty years ago, a farmer with a good set of tools and some patience could fix almost anything on his own equipment. Many did, and the farm shop was part of the culture of rural America. That changed as machines grew more sophisticated. Modern tractors and combines are run by onboard computers that control the engine, the emissions system, the hydraulics and the GPS steering. Replace a part and the machine may refuse to recognize it until an authorized technician pairs it with the system using proprietary software.

From the manufacturer's point of view, this is a matter of safety, quality and intellectual property. From the farmer's point of view, it means that a machine he paid for can be disabled by a company he no longer does business with, at the worst possible moment, and that the repair will cost what the dealer says it costs. Many dealerships have consolidated, so in some parts of the country, the nearest authorized shop is a long drive away.

The farmers began pushing back in the mid-2010s. Some turned to software from overseas to get around the locks. Farm organizations began lobbying state legislatures. And a word that sounds like it belongs to activists in Brooklyn, "repair," began appearing on hand-lettered signs at farm shows.

Who was in the coalition

The alliance that formed around repair is one of the oddest in modern politics, and one of the most durable.

There were the farmers, many of them conservative, many of them members of farm bureaus and the Farmers Union. There were independent repair shops, small businesses in every town that wanted to fix phones, appliances and cars without being cut off from parts. There were tinkerers and hobbyists who had grown up taking things apart. There were environmental groups, who pointed out that a culture of throwing away broken devices fills landfills and wastes the materials and energy that went into making them. There were consumer advocates, who saw a straightforward question of price. And there were disability advocates, who had watched people wait weeks for a power wheelchair repair that a local technician could have done in an afternoon.

That last group deserves special mention, because Colorado's first repair law, passed in 2022, was for powered wheelchairs. Users who depend on a chair for independence had been stranded by manufacturers that restricted parts and diagnostics. The wheelchair law showed the legislature that the argument could win, and it set up the farm equipment bill the next year.

Notice the political shape of this coalition. It is not a left-right compromise in which each side gives something up. It is a shared interest in ownership, the idea that when you buy something, it should be yours. Conservatives hear property rights and self-reliance. Progressives hear consumer protection and corporate power. Environmentalists hear waste. Small-business owners hear survival. Everyone is describing the same thing.

What the manufacturers argue

The industry's case deserves a fair hearing, because it is not empty.

Equipment makers say that unrestricted access to software could let owners tamper with emissions controls, putting them out of compliance with federal clean air rules. They warn that untrained repairs could make heavy machinery dangerous. Phone makers argue that security features protect users from theft and data breaches, and that cheap third-party parts can be poor quality. Some manufacturers say their software and diagnostic tools represent years of investment and are protected intellectual property.

Each of these concerns has an answer, and most repair laws build the answer in. The laws generally do not require companies to let owners disable emissions controls; the federal Clean Air Act still applies, and tampering is still illegal. They typically do not require manufacturers to hand over trade secrets, only the same parts, tools and documentation they already give to their authorized dealers. If an authorized technician can be trusted with a diagnostic tool, an independent one with the same tool and training is no more dangerous. And on security, the experience of the auto industry is instructive: independent mechanics have had access to car diagnostics for years, and the cars are not less safe for it.

There is a deeper point, too. Much of the resistance is about money. Repair and parts are a profitable business, and controlling them can be worth a great deal over the life of an expensive machine. That is a legitimate business interest. It is not a reason for the law to guarantee it.

The auto precedent in Massachusetts

The repair movement did not start on the farm. It started with cars, in Massachusetts.

In 2012, voters there approved a ballot question requiring automakers to give independent repair shops access to the same diagnostic information as dealers. The measure passed overwhelmingly, and the industry soon agreed to a national memorandum of understanding extending similar access across the country, rather than face fifty different state laws.

As cars became connected computers that send data wirelessly, the issue came back. In 2020, Massachusetts voters approved another question, extending access to that wireless data, again by a wide margin. Automakers sued, and the legal fight over that law dragged on for years.

The lesson from Massachusetts is that voters, given a direct choice, side with repair by large majorities in a state that is otherwise deeply Democratic. The lesson from Colorado is that a legislature in a state with a big farm economy and a long purple history will too, once the farmers themselves come to testify.

The momentum and the pushback

After Colorado, the movement kept winning. New York passed a digital electronics repair law that Governor Kathy Hochul signed at the end of 2022, though with amendments that weakened it. Minnesota passed a broad law covering consumer electronics in 2023. Other states followed with laws covering electronics, appliances and, in some cases, farm equipment.

Manufacturers have also adapted. In early 2023, John Deere signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation promising farmers and independent shops access to diagnostic tools and manuals. Critics noted that memorandums are voluntary and not enforceable the way a law is, and that the industry has used similar agreements to argue that legislation is unnecessary. Supporters of state laws kept pushing.

At the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission released a report in 2021 finding little evidence for many of the justifications manufacturers gave for repair restrictions. In January 2025, the commission sued Deere, alleging that its repair restrictions unlawfully drove up costs for farmers. Bills to establish national repair rights have been introduced in Congress with co-sponsors from both parties, though none has become law.

Why rural and urban voters can stand together here

There is a tendency in American politics to treat the rural-urban divide as a fixed fact of nature. On repair, it dissolves.

A farmer in Weld County and a phone repair shop owner in Denver face the same problem: a manufacturer controls access to parts and software, and uses that control to steer business toward its own network. A rancher whose tractor stops in the field and a single mother whose phone screen cracks and who is told the repair costs nearly as much as a new phone are both being told that they do not quite own what they bought.

This matters for progressives in particular. Too often, the party has spoken to rural America in a language of programs and subsidies, and has struggled to be heard. Repair is a cause where the language of ownership and independence is natural, where the opponent is a powerful corporation rather than a neighbour, and where the solution costs taxpayers nothing. It is a chance to show up in rural places and win something concrete alongside people who did not vote the same way.

Progressives have also made the case harder at times. Repair campaigns sometimes framed themselves mostly in environmental terms, which is true but not how most farmers think about their combines. The campaigns that won tended to lead with ownership and cost, and to put farmers, mechanics and wheelchair users in front of the cameras rather than advocacy staff.

The planet, quietly

The environmental case for repair deserves its own word, even if it is not the lead argument everywhere.

Electronic waste is among the fastest-growing streams of trash in the world. Every phone, laptop and appliance thrown out early represents mined metals, manufacturing energy and shipping emissions that bought less use than they could have. Extending the life of a device by even a couple of years spreads that footprint over more of its working life. Repair also supports local jobs that cannot be outsourced: the person fixing your phone or your tractor works in your community.

None of that requires anyone to adopt a particular view of climate policy. A conservative who hates waste and a progressive who worries about emissions can stand in the same repair shop and agree that keeping things working is better than throwing them away.

What a repair law actually asks for

For all the noise around them, most repair laws are modest in what they require. It helps to lay the typical pieces out plainly.

A covered manufacturer must make available, to owners and to independent repair providers, the same parts, tools, diagnostic software and service documentation it provides to its own authorized dealers. It must do so on fair and reasonable terms, which generally means at prices and conditions comparable to what its dealer network gets. Many laws also require that a manufacturer not use software to block a working replacement part simply because it did not come through official channels, a practice known as parts pairing, which has become a central fight in the electronics world.

What the laws usually do not require is just as important. They do not force a company to reveal trade secrets beyond what it already shares with dealers. They do not authorize owners to modify emissions controls or safety systems in violation of other laws. They do not require manufacturers to provide repair services themselves, or to keep making parts forever. And they do not stop a company from offering warranties; they mostly stop it from voiding a warranty merely because someone else did the repair, which federal law already restricts in many cases.

Enforcement varies by state. In many, a violation is treated under consumer protection law, which puts the state attorney general in charge of bringing cases. That design keeps the cost to taxpayers low and gives manufacturers a strong reason to comply without creating a new agency.

The upshot is that a repair law is less a new regulation than an end to a restriction. It removes a manufacturer's ability to decide who may fix what it has sold.

What you can do

• Find out whether your state has a repair law, and ask your legislators about one. Our representatives lookup includes your state legislators as well as your members of Congress, with phone numbers and contact forms. State legislatures are where most repair laws have passed.
• Back the federal bills. The same lookup shows your House member's and senators' latest votes. A call asking whether they will co-sponsor national repair legislation for farm equipment and electronics puts the issue on their radar.
• Look for local allies. Many communities have repair cafes, tool libraries and independent repair shops that support these laws; our organizations directory lists nonprofits by cause in every state, a good place to start finding groups working on consumer and environmental issues near you.
• Follow the fight against corporate control. Reporting on repair, farm concentration and manufacturer lock-in collects on the corporate power topic page.
• Fix something. The next time a device breaks, look for an independent shop before you buy new. Every repair is a small vote for the idea that you own what you paid for.