the job of being the voice of consumers in government has been vacant for years in Massachusetts. Not since the ’80s and early ’90s have we had political figures who made long-term commitments to consumer issues and were vocal advocates for the rights of the little guy.

Back then, we were a state that prided itself on having strong consumer protection laws and didn’t apologize for them. We had state legislators who championed consumer rights (Sen. Lois Pines), a visible Consumer Protection Division run by the attorney general (Scott Harshbarger), and a secretary of consumer affairs (Paula Gold) who conducted marketplace investigations that affected everyone’s pocketbook.

The results were impressive. The “lemon law” covering auto sales was born, home improvement contractors became regulated by the state, consumers got a three-day right to cancel timeshare and health club contracts, retailers were penalized on the spot for scanner errors or missing prices, advertisers came under strict oversight by the attorney general, and new consumer laws were proposed regularly.

At the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, investigators’ duties included visiting stores to catch overcharging; expose those selling outdated meat; check on the availability of advertised items and see whether rain checks were fulfilled; inspect automobile dealers’ lots to ensure “lemon law” rights were posted on every car; publish the names of car companies selling more than their share of lemons; and check that banks gave teens and senior citizens the discounted accounts to which they were entitled. The office also regularly filed consumer protection bills to fill loopholes in laws.

Paula Gold, the woman behind most of the investigations and legislation, was secretary of consumer affairs from 1983 to 1989. A veteran of then-Attorney General Frank Bellotti’s office, Gold’s name became a household word, much like Betty Furness or Bess Myerson in New York years ago. She was the face of consumer protection in Massachusetts for many years. The public felt comforted that someone in government was watching out for them.

The attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division was also active. Home improvement contractors who created nightmares for homeowners were sued. Promoters of phony going-out-of-business sales were caught. Credit bureaus that screwed up consumers’ credit reports were made to change their practices. Retailers advertising fictitious discounts paid over $1.4 million in penalties. Unscrupulous car dealers found themselves in front of judges. Regulations governing retail advertising, debt collectors, and travel were created or revised.

In the Legislature, Lois Pines, who served in the Senate from 1987 to 1999, crafted, among other things, the bottle deposit law, the state version of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the law requiring insurance policies to be in plain English. And whenever a pro-consumer or anti-consumer bill was up for a legislative hearing, representatives from both Consumer Affairs and the attorney general’s office would testify to protect consumer interests.

But that was then, and this is now. Today it seems as if no one in state government is watching out publicly for consumer interests to any great degree.

There is no identifiable champion for consumer rights in the Legislature, and officials from Consumer Affairs and the attorney general’s office rarely show up at legislative hearings or take public positions on bills affecting consumers. Bills that would have controlled spyware, regulated credit card fees, updated the bottle deposit law, and given new rights to car buyers, cell phone users, and debt-burdened consumers all died this session.

In the attorney general’s office, eight years of Tom Reilly brought little in the way of consumer protection. In fact, he presided over a watering-down of consumer regulations at the behest of retailers. Reilly’s successor, Martha Coakley, has aggressively pursued predatory lenders and tried to set auto insurance reform on the right track, among other things. At the same time, though, she significantly cut the hours of operation of the consumer complaint hotline, and has not assigned anyone to regularly monitor retail advertising practices. Lack of staff, however, didn’t prevent the attorney general from creating a pro-business “economic development” division. Coakley’s preference for concentrating on big issues and complex cases has largely pushed aside more routine consumer issues. That is a lost opportunity for someone who arguably could be forceful in a public consumer role.

Finally, at the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, a series of directors have come and gone — many having little, if any, consumer background, and few willing to point fingers at any business wrongdoing. The office no longer conducts marketplace investigations and surveys, despite its enabling legislation that requires them. That office was even demoted from being a secretariat under Gov. William Weld.

No one minding the store

When did “consumer protection” become a dirty word in Massachusetts? How is it that business protection is now seemingly more important than consumer protection? Where is the next crop of consumer leaders in government?

Maybe government officials are overcompensating for the Commonwealth’s historic reputation for not being a business-friendly state. They don’t realize, however, that facilitating new company startups and protecting the public in business transactions are not mutually exclusive. In fact, good consumer laws (and enforcement of them) help root out unfair competition and create a level playing field, so honest and compliant businesses can flourish.

To illustrate the problem that consumers face when no one is minding the store on their behalf, take the case of a recent business-backed bill on item pricing. Under the guise of “consumer protection” legislation, this bill reveals the level of disregard its drafters had for consumer interests while displaying boundless empathy for its business proponents. The bill in question would allow all retailers, including supermarkets, to stop putting price stickers on goods.

Despite the public’s strong preference for maintaining prices on items, the bill called instead for installing self-service scanners in some but not all store aisles. These are the very devices that have repeatedly been shown by state inspectors and a private consumer group to fail to function properly. Compounding the problem, no action has been undertaken by either the current or previous attorney general to enforce their own regulations governing these machines.

Under the duplicitous title of An Act Relative to Clear and Conspicuous Price Disclosure, the proposed bill actually provided for less price disclosure. It did not even require at least 1-inch-high numerals on price signs, as the current law provides. Remarkably, advertised sale prices would not be required to be on items nor appear on aisle scanners.

Fines and inspections were to be drastically reduced or eliminated, thus crippling enforcement. In most cases, stores could be inspected a maximum of once a year, compared to no more than once a week now. Instant fines of $100 were to be dropped. Other fines were to be reduced 90 percent, from a maximum of $2,500 to $250 per inspection in most cases. Fines that are now issued like parking tickets for supermarket pricing violations would be replaced by a time-consuming criminal court process for imposition of that measly $250 penalty.

Can you imagine an inspector going into criminal court to complain that Stop & Shop has the wrong price for peas? It is not going to happen, and without a viable enforcement mechanism, compliance rates with even minimal price disclosure requirements will fall, to the detriment of shoppers.

How could such an anti-consumer bill nearly pass the House? It started at the top, when Speaker Sal DiMasi pronounced price stickers an anachronism at a meeting of retailers last November, without soliciting input about their value from consumer advocates. From there, a committee chair dutifully cobbled together parts of various anti-item pricing bills and spun them into a “consumer” bill. That chair was even quoted as calling the finished product “the strongest piece of consumer protection legislation in the country.”

Funny, consumer groups were never even asked to comment on the bill until after it was approved by that committee, and then every group opposed it.

Why didn’t Attorney General Coakley or Undersecretary of Consumer Affairs Dan Crane stand up in public to oppose the bill after their offices were made aware of it by consumer advocates? Sure, they were busy with the current foreclosure crisis or other priorities, and their efforts in that regard should be applauded. But it wouldn’t have taken a lot of time to get on their bully pulpits and publicly call this bill damaging to the shopping public. Fortunately, a few enlightened legislators were ready to fight the bill, and that helped kill it.

The item pricing bill is not the only example of anti-consumer legislation cleverly portrayed as good for the public that went unchallenged by consumer officials. The bill that would have abolished the cap on the resale price of tickets to sporting and entertainment events had been billed as consumer protection legislation. (See “Red Sox Call Their Own Play to Control Ticket Scalping,” Inquiries, CW, Spring ’08.) While including a provision to combat counterfeit tickets is laudable, most citizens who want to take their kids to a Red Sox game would prefer to see the Legislature outlaw the practice of selling tickets at three times their face value rather than legalize it.

Did the attorney general or Consumer Affairs take a public stand on the issue? No. Luckily, the bill stalled in the Senate after passing the House last fall.

The Legislature also recently took up two genuinely pro-consumer bills that would have created a bill of consumer rights for used car buyers and one for cell phone users.

Did the attorney general or Consumer Affairs take a public stand to help pass or even suggest amendments to those bills? No. And both bills were banished to study committees, where they died.

Another test is looming. Coakley’s Consumer Protection Division is considering revisions to its decades-old advertising regulations. With retailers eager to water down the rules, will these attorney general and Consumer Affairs stand up to the pressure and increase (or at least maintain) the existing level of protection for consumers? Or will rules such as the one to prevent the advertising of phony discounts and fictitious “regular” prices become virtually meaningless?

Without someone in authority speaking up for them, individual consumers often feel powerless and think that their interests are not being protected. Particularly in the current tough economic climate, when shoppers are counting their pennies to help make ends meet, it is even more important that the few elected or appointed officials whose job it is to represent consumers and monitor the marketplace do so visibly, actively, and passionately. Goodness knows enough folks are watching out for businesses.

Think of all the new consumer issues today that did not exist 20 years ago that may require regulation or at least public inquiry, including: privacy rights and the surreptitious tracking of our online surfing habits; security of personal information; scams related to e-commerce and mobile commerce; TV digitalization; new electronic payment mechanisms; equal access to net services; genetically modified food; and “spy chips” implanted in consumer products (RFID). Sadly, individual consumer voices will barely be heard on these issues. Who can we count on in government to advocate for us?

If someone had been looking out for our interests sooner, maybe we would not have found ourselves in the current mortgage mess, or at the mercy of credit card companies’ sneaky fees and practices.

Recently, Undersecretary of Consumer Affairs Crane said that Gov. Deval Patrick asked him to put the “consumer” back in Consumer Affairs. Now is his chance. And the same golden opportunity exists for the attorney general and a small number of legislators to stand up for consumer interests zealously. No one new has to apply for the job of being the voice of the consumer. It is already in the job description of these officeholders. They only need the disposition and inclination to act upon it.

Edgar Dworsky has been a consumer advocate for 31 years, having worked at both the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation and the attorney general’s office. Currently, he is founder of ConsumerWorld.org and editor of MousePrint.org, two consumer education websites.