SACRAMENTO
Breaking up Ticketmaster
For their stranglehold on the ticketing and live concert industry, Live Nation and subsidiary Ticketmaster have drawn the ire of not only pop musician Taylor Swift, but also the U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
On Thursday the federal Department of Justice announced it is joining 30 state attorneys general, including Bonta, in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Live Nation has illegally maintained its monopoly over concerts, ticketing and promotions by locking venues into exclusive contracts, threatening retaliation, limiting artists’ access to the venues Live Nation owns and other practices.
Bonta, in a statement: “While this illegal conduct benefits Live Nation’s bottom line — it hurts artists, their fans, and our economy. This lawsuit sends a clear message: Here in California, we’re committed to protecting consumers, holding industry accountable, enforcing antitrust laws, and ensuring a fair and competitive market.”
In addition to calls for Live Nation to sell off Ticketmaster, the lawsuit seeks financial compensation for California and ticket buyers who were overcharged by Live Nation, according to Bonta.
In its response, Live Nation said it’s not to blame for rising ticket prices, and said the lawsuit ignores the real causes “from rising production costs, to artist popularity, to 24/7 online ticket scalping.”
The lawsuit’s announcement comes a week after the Assembly appropriations committee held a bill that would have reined in some of Live Nation’s authority over primary ticket sales. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, the author of the bill and chairperson of the committee, said in an email to CalMatters that if the lawsuit leads to the breakup of Live Nation’s monopoly, it will “benefit consumers and artists alike.”
Wicks, an Oakland Democrat: “Having spent the past six months trying to tackle this issue at the state level, I’m thrilled to see … from both red and blue states to call for an end to these companies’ anticompetitive policies. It’s a seismic step, at a moment that truly calls for it.”[
—Lynn La, CALMatters
SACRAMENTO
Sen. Wahab recall falls apart
The current recall effort against Sen. Aisha Wahab — provoked by her contentious 2023 caste discrimination bill — won’t move forward, after proponents say they were unable to submit signatures.
The deadline was Thursday to turn in 42,802 valid signatures of voters in the district, which includes parts of Alameda and Santa Clara counties.
But Ritesh Tandon, one of the recall organizers and a congressional candidate in 2020, 2022 and the primary in March, said a line on the forms that were required to submit signatures was missing. He claimed they had collected more than 30,000 signatures by March.
The Secretary of State’s office, which cleared the proponents to start collecting signatures in December, confirmed it was notified of the problem, but said it told the proponents on Feb. 20 that the issue was not enough to invalidate the petition.
Tandon, however, said it was impossible to go back to the petition circulators — he said there were 10,000 — to add their signatures.
The organizers say they’ve learned lessons from the process and will try again to recall the Democratic senator from Fremont, whose first term runs until 2026.
Wahab, to CalMatters: “It’s disappointing to see that this is their third attempt, based on the fact that I carried a bill about civil rights and they’re not happy with it. It’s disappointing to see the amount of time and energy and money that is going into this effort.”
The recall was originally started last year in response to Wahab’s bill to strengthen protections against caste discrimination in employment and housing. The Legislature passed a version of the bill, which was opposed by groups who alleged the bill unfairly targeted Hindu Californians, but Gov. Newsom vetoed it.
Now, recall organizers say the caste bill is no longer the reason, and instead take issue with Wahab’s work as the new chairperson of the Senate’s Public Safety committee and concerns over crime, including not responding to shooting deaths and vehicle fires in the district, and for introducing a bill that would prohibit asking housing applicants to disclose any criminal history.
—Sameea Kamal, CALMatters
