In 1982, when I was with Connecticut PIRG, we helped pass the nation's first new car lemon law. At the time, we were only a few weeks ahead of passage of California's law, where Rosemary Shahan was leading the way.

Lemon laws have now been enacted in every state. They solved the myriad legal problems consumers faced when they bought a car from a dealer that didn't work. Lemon laws generally define a lemon (a new car that has the same major unfixable defect 3-4 times during warranty, or is in the shop 30 days during warranty, for example) so consumers no longer have to prove their particular car is a lemon in court (previously, they did). Lemon laws also give consumers an explicit legal right to sue a manufacturer, something that they didn't have, which also crippled many lawsuits. Lemon laws also streamlined the legal process. A few states have enacted similar laws for used cars.

The new California law is the latest example of laws designed to meet the special needs of our underpaid military personnel, who are often targets of unfair predatory practices. The law simply provides the same protections to in-state military personnel that other residents enjoy. Recently, the Congress has recognized that in some cases, military personnel need even greater rights. In 2003, stronger rights for military personnel to prevent identity theft (active duty military fraud alerts) were established. In 2006 rights against predatory lending (although rules on this are not yet final and aren't as good as we would like) were enacted.