This post is a detour; soon I will continue with my epic, must-read series on the tax policy issues under debate during the fiscal cliff negotiations. Today I want to briefly point out how the battle between the car service Uber and city governments around the country stands as an example of the kinds of pointless regulations that we should all oppose, and that progressives in particular can’t afford to ignore.

DC residents have been privy to the ongoing battle between the car service Uber and our own city government for quite some time now. For those outside its target markets, Uber is basically a livery service. You create an account with your billing information, download the app to your phone, and click a button to hail a ride from Uber’s nearest driver. When you reach your destination, Uber automatically bills your card for the ride, including a tip. No cash changes hands, the cars are cushy and prompt, the drivers are professional, and you can get a ride when cabs are unavailable. In short, it’s pretty excellent – so excellent, in fact, that the DC Taxicab Commission received no complaints about Uber during most of the firm’s first year in the city.

On the surface, then, it’s baffling that city governments pretty much unanimously hate Uber and have proposed a slew of regulations that would shut the service down. Soon after Uber launched its operations here, the DC Taxicab Commission declared the service “illegal” and impounded a limousine that drove for the service. The commission soon relented, only to pursue its beef through more traditional channels at the city council.

Some of the proposed rules, both in DC and elsewhere, are aimed directly at Uber’s “demand pricing,” which involves higher fares during periods of peak demand. While Uber angered plenty of customers after they were unexpectedly hit with huge fares last New Year’s Eve, the service has since made its pricing model a bit more transparent, and in any case “price gouging” isn’t something that the government should concern itself with.

At least regulations targeting Uber’s pricing model ostensibly address consumer gripes. Other rules seem to address nonexistent problems. In DC, one proposed regulation would establish a new “sedan class” of commercial vehicles – singling out the cars that Uber uses – and require that operators of that class own at least 20 cars, which must meet several criteria, including having been originally painted black by the manufacturer and having been designated by the manufacturer as a “luxury” vehicle. This is a transparent attempt to target Uber, and a strange one at that: DC has a huge number of owner-operated cab companies, many of them with at most a handful of cars.

Worse yet, earlier this year DC councilwoman Mary Cheh proposed, for no apparent reason, a minimum fare of $15 for rides on Uber and similar services. The measure had strong support in the council and almost passed. Only a last-minute PR blitz by Uber, in which satisfied customers bombarded city hall with complaints about the proposal and stories about their love of Uber, prevented the rule’s passage.

Why, then, do cities seem so hostile towards Uber and other similar services? I think that two reasons stand out. First, taxi drivers form a surprisingly powerful political constituency. This is especially the case in Washington, which has only around 600,000 residents but which, as the employment hub of the metro area’s 5m+ people, is home to the vast bulk of its taxi drivers. Cabbies were big supporters of mayor Vincent Gray’s election in 2010, and they even provided free rides to the polls for Gray supporters on primary day (which is when the real action takes place in this Democratic stronghold). As a result, they have been hounding Gray for favors ever since. Drivers got some payback when Gray eliminated the $19 cap on fares for any cab ride in the District, but since then they have been up in arms over Gray’s decision to go ahead with a plan to require taxis to accept credit cards.

With his political debt to cab drivers, and with his need to placate them after pushing credit card machines on them, it’s no surprise that the Gray administration has been hostile towards Uber. The firm has injected some serious competition into DC’s taxi market, where dismal service abounds. Until just a few years ago, cabs here didn’t even have meters. For people fed up with it – and for people who are frequently passed up by cabs – Uber provides a ready alternative. Indeed, at one recent hearing councilmember Jim Graham worried aloud about the “deleterious effect that Uber’s success has had on taxi drivers.” The city’s hostility towards Uber thus plays like a textbook case of a government protecting a favored political constituency from economic competition.

The second reason for the hostility seems to stem from city administrators looking for something to do. By responding to problems that are only theoretical, by protecting consumers from threats that aren’t currently existent, and by seeking to clamp down on an industry responding to a large public need, city transportation authorities are trying to expand their mandate to cover all transit options within their borders, thus ensuring their own relevance and authority. This is tightly linked with the issue of personal pride: After determining that most cities’ taxi regulations don’t apply to it, Uber has simply entered most of its markets without consulting the local authorities. Those authorities feel snubbed and want to show Uber who’s boss.

Everyone should be concerned about this situation for at least one reason, and liberals should be concerned for at least two. First – and here’s something that everyone can get behind – Uber and services like it bring huge efficiencies to this stagnant sector. That’s just a way of saying that they make life way better for people looking for a ride. I have only used Uber once (it’s typically more expensive than taking a cab, which is more expensive than taking the bus or metro), but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I was leaving a very odd club on a godawful stretch of New York Avenue, and I needed to get home to Petworth. No transit links exist for such a journey, and cabs kept passing me by (probably assuming that, based on my location on said stretch of road, I was a transvestite prostitute). Uber came to the rescue, and I’m glad it exists.

Second – and most importantly in the bigger picture – while regulations like these may have a relatively small direct impact on people’s lives, they do have profound effects on public opinion. By vindicating the conservative parody of government as inherently incompetent and of regulation as inherently harmful, they play into a misleading narrative about the need to oppose all government interference in the marketplace.

Liberals who want to defend rules and regulations that actually have an economic or social imperative must deny opponents these smaller but powerful examples about regulations run amok. While local regulations about cabs and limos would ideally have no bearing on the debate about larger social and national issues, the fact is that fights like these can poison the waters. Most people take a look at petty battles like the one over Uber and lower their opinion of all public officials by another notch. The more pointless regulations proliferate, the more appealing it is to take the stance of the reluctant libertarian – even if people want strong environmental and social legislation, regulations like these might understandably leave people deeply skeptical of any government action whatsoever.

-JH