OOIDA successfully joins lawsuit against California's AB5 law.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) sought to join the California Trucking Association's (CTA) lawsuit in April 2021. The CTA has challenged AB5 stating that it violated provisions of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act. It later challenged that the law is an unconstitutional violation of the Commerce Clause. Under the Commerce Clause, the federal government can regulate and has priority in regulating instrumentalities in interstate commerce (trucks).

OOIDA has joined the lawsuit to assert another theory deriving from the Commerce Clause, known as the Dormant Commerce Clause. It's dormant because it is not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that because the federal government can regulate interstate commerce, then states cannot enact laws that would take that power away from the federal government.

Because OOIDA represents owner-operators and independent truckers nationally, the question is what would happen if all states enacted laws similar to AB5? This is the new challenge that California will have to overcome to uphold AB5 as applied to truckers.