PG&E, the Proposition 16 backers, leave a lot of information out of their slick new TV ad. Let’s go through it (transcript over the flip.

Let’s go over it, claim by claim. First, read the fine print

PAID FOR BY YES ON 16/CALIFORNIANS TO PROTECT OUR RIGHT TO VOTE, MAJOR FUNDING FROM PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY, A COALITION OF TAXPAYERS, BUSINESS AND LABOR

Of course, it only flashes on the screen for 4 seconds, so you can’t really read it in the ad. But if you could read it, you wouldn’t even know that 100%, not “major,” funding comes from PG&E. Every penny comes from the electrical utility, who has a lot to gain in their attempt to actually limit the people’s choice, and even limit their voting. By the way, PG&E ins’t a coalition of anything, especially labor. No labor organization that I know of supports this measure.

“But in the end, it’s really government run electric service.”

This is technically true, but they leave a few convenient facts out. Government or municipal electric service is accountable to the voters through board elections and consumer choice.  PG&E is beholden to its management and stockholders to make them money. Operators at public power agencies cannot be paid multi-million dollar corporate bonuses like the $10 million a year compensation package PG&E’s CEO, Peter Darbee is getting. (That’s paid for with ratepayer funds.)

Furthermore, government or municipal electric utilities cannot spend one dime of your ratepayer money for a political campaign like Prop. 16.  But PG&E, a for-profit utility, has contributed $25 million in ratepayer funds to pass Prop. 16 which will limit consumer choice and give PG&E a virtual monopoly.

Under current law, local government can spend unlimited public funds to go into the electricity business, and we don’t even have the right to vote on it.

This is absurd. Local governments are made up of elected officials – County Supervisors, Mayors and City Council members. They and their actions are highly accountable to voters. It’s the way we decide every other spending decision, apparently PG&E wants special privileges. Anyway, local public agencies cannot put taxpayer resources at risk without a vote of the people under existing law.

Requires voter approval before local governments can spend public funds to take over electric service.

Of course, what it doesn’t mention is that it isn’t just a simple up and down vote. Proposition 16 requires that two-thirds of the electorate has to approve a new municipal power system – giving PG&E a clearly unfair advantage. This is a rarely achieved supermajority that a deep-pocketed for-profit business like PG&E will use to ensure consumers have no choice in power providers.

Whether government run electricity is a good idea or not, voters should have the final say, because we’re paying the bills.

Today, voters have NO say in the high rates and poor service that PG&E provides. Prop. 16 locks that in. Virtually every municipal or government run power system in California charge lower rates than PG&E, some by 25% or more.

Transcript:

Image- power lines

Woman narrating: “It goes by different names”

Text Images on the screen: “public power” “local public electricity providers” “community choice aggregation”

Women narrating: “But in the end, it’s really government run electric service.”

Women on screen: “under current law, local government can spend unlimited public funds to go into the electricity business, and we don’t even have the right to vote on it.”

Image and spoken by women: “Proposition 16, The Taxpayers Right to Vote Act”

Highlighted text on screen read by women: “Requires voter approval before local governments can spend public funds to take over electric service.”

Woman back on screen: Whether government run electricity is a good idea or not, voters should have the final say, because we’re paying the bills. Vote Yes on Proposition 16, the taxpayers right to vote act.”

In a conference call a while back, PG&E CEO Peter Darbee accidentally let slip the truth about his “taxpayer’s right to vote” act. Hardy-har.  Basically, this initiative isn’t intended to really give anybody the vote, instead, it is intended to stop counties from even trying this sort of thing. Keep in mind, these words are direct from the mouth of Darbee:

And the idea was to diminish, you know, rather than year after year different communities coming in as this or that and putting this up for vote and us having to spend millions and millions of shareholder dollars to defend it repeatedly, we thought that this was a way that we could sort of diminish that level unless there was a very strong, you know, mandate from voters that this was what they wanted to do. (John Geesman)

Here’s the thing, very rarely do you get 2/3 of people to agree on anything. So PG&E is banking on counties never even bringing this stuff up for a vote, in all intents and purposes, killing community choice aggregation (CCA) in California forever.

So, PG&E, why don’t we just call this what it is: Kill CCA Forever Act. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve been hounding Marin and San Francisco counties as they have been preparing to enter a CCA program?

Look, the amount of money required to set up a CCA is a relatively small amount of money compared with other expenditures at the county level. I don’t have exact figures, because there hasn’t been a good case study for CCA. PG&E tries to kill them before they get out of the planning stages.  Why require a vote on this one small issue when elected leaders can spend far more on other, costlier programs?

The answer is clear, PG&E doesn’t like it because it messes with their bottom line.  Despite the fact that they claimed that they would play nice with CCAs when they screwed up the power during the brownouts, they’ve continued to act in bad faith. (As an aside, the public power operators fared far better in terms of brownouts than PG&E and other private power companies)

This has nothing to do with anybody’s right to vote. If we wanted to vote on everything we could move to Athens, circa 2500 years ago. But, California is too big for votes on every issue, and PG&E with its big corporate accounts overflowing with ratepayer money uses every last penny hiring fancy consultants to go around spreading lies about “how this is just about letting people vote.” They know it is a bunch of bullshit, and Darbee acknowledges that much.

You think the PG&E spokespeople will be quoting Darbee about how he intends there to be less voting? Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.

Yesterday, the PUC heard a debate about Prop 16, PG&E’s attempt to buy itself a brand new supermajority law. The PUC has, in the past, taken positions on initiatives in areas that it regulates.  It should join every editorial board that has looked at the measure and say NO! to PG&E’s power-play.

But, today there was some bigger news.  A group of municipalities sued to take Prop 16 off the ballot:

The City and County of San Francisco today joined with public entities from throughout California in a lawsuit to strike the controversial PG&E-funded initiative constitutional amendment, Proposition 16, from the June 8, 2010 statewide ballot for being wholly false and misleading, and for concealing its true nature and purpose from voters. Dubiously self-entitled the “Taxpayers Right to Vote Act” by its proponents, despite having no bearing on taxation or government spending, the California Attorney General recently re-entitled the measure, “New Two-Thirds Vote Requirement for Local Public Electricity Providers.” The proposed amendment would impose a new super-majority vote threshold before public entities in California would be allowed to pursue virtually any energy services programs intended to benefit ratepayers or the environment.

*** **** ***

“Despite what its proponents would have us believe, Prop 16 doesn’t help taxpayers and doesn’t empower voters-in fact, it does the exact opposite,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. “Enabling a one-third minority to hold the will of the majority hostage has been a disaster for our state budget process in Sacramento. Now, Prop 16 would impose that recipe for deadlock on California’s energy future. State law enables courts to remove initiatives that misrepresent and conceal their true nature and purpose. If our elections laws are to have meaning, the court should strike this deceptive amendment from the ballot.” (Press Release)

Of course, the pro-Prop 16 Consultant Strike Force (paid out of PG&E’s ratepayer-funded political slush fund) immediately flew into action. This is from Robin Swanson, a Democratic consultant:

Opponents would rather file lawsuits behind closed doors and use legal maneuvers to try and stop people from voting than talk to the voters of California in the open forum of an election.

Ironically, Proposition 16 was put on the ballot simply to guarantee voters the right to vote before local governments borrow or spend public dollars to take over electric utilities. Particularly in these tough economic times, we need to make sure we can use our vote to hold the politicians accountable.

But, as evidenced from today’s actions, it’s clear that the opponents don’t want voters to have a say on this issue at all.(Press release – Robin Swanson)

To say this is deceptive would be a grand understatement.  Let’s put this in perspective.

And finally, PG&E is going to give anybody lectures about voting when they are trying to institute a supermajority requirement? It’s ludicrous on its face.  But, that’s why they are going after the supermajority requirement.  Even a 50% vote of the people is ridiculous after they previously agreed to support communities who wanted to embark upon community choice aggregation.

In the end, this is just bad policy. It’s why editorial boards across the state are panning this awful measure:

Pacific Gas and Electric spent $3.5 million to collect more than a million signatures to qualify what it calls the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act for California’s June ballot. The title makes it sound like motherhood and apple pie. It’s just the opposite. If voters approve the scam, it will protect PG&E from dissatisfied customers angry about bad service and high costs. (Fresno Bee, 1/20/2010)

The point isn’t to protect taxpayers’ rights. It’s to protect the profits of a monopoly utility – both from ambitious clean-power schemes in San Francisco and from modest annexations in Redding. This is one measure where voters will need to look past the catchy slogan and see who really stands to benefit.(The Redding Record Searchlight 1/16/2010)

It is unusual for The Bee to come out against a ballot measure before the campaign has really started. The PG&E initiative deserves special attention. It’s that bad.(Sacramento Bee, 1/192010)

Californians must stand up to this effort to pass a monopolistic measure with our own money.

Interesting polls, updates and the like often find their way into my inbox. Much of it goes onto the pile of “to be written about,” but time keeps eluding me on actually getting to the bottom of that stack.  One such item cannot allude me any longer.  It is a poll from Goodwin Simon Research on PG&E’s Prop 16, the measure that would require supermajorities to vote in favor of adding any new customers to municipal power systems.

The news ain’t good for PG&E. From a simple reading of the ballot title & statement, they’re in a pretty tough spot. Just 21% of voters support Prop 16 from just that information.

The pollsters then tossed in a pro-PG&E statement pulled from their ballot argument, “Proposition 16 would “require a city or other local government to get a two-thirds vote of its people before it could use public funds to provide or expand new electricity service to residents and business.” After this, only 32% support, with 42% opposing.

These are horrific numbers to start off a campaign with. But, if you’re PG&E and willing to plow $6.5 million of your ratepayers money, no mountain is too steep of a climb. As of right now, there’s not much of a No campaign, but it wouldn’t be that hard to get one going. You wouldn’t need to match PG&E just have enough to let people know what a dud this truly is.

Interestingly, I heard that when they were designing the initiative, they tested 2/3 and simple majority, and 2/3 tested better. Folks, we have a long way to go.

John Geesman, a former California Energy Commissioner, has been tracking PG&E’s naked power ploy, Prop 16, for a while now. You can find his writings at the PG&E Ballot Initiative Fact Sheet.  In a posting from yesterday, he tears into the California Chamber of Commerce for endorsing it. Apparently, the Cal Chamber hasn’t bothered to read the measure before they just sorta agreed to do PG&E’s bidding.  PG&E is, of course, a big contributor to the CalChamber.

The statewide California Association of Realtors  last week took a formal position against the PG&E-sponsored initiative, while some months ago — before it even qualified for the ballot — the gullible State Chamber endorsed it.  

{However,} the drafting error, a failure to clearly define what constitutes the “new customer” that triggers an election with a 2/3’s vote requirement — which strikes terror into the heart of every realtor with a listing or a buyer in any of the 48 effected communitiesis probably an even bigger threat to new or relocating businessesin those same locales. Analysis of wording flaws here and here.> (PG&E Ballot Initiative Fact Sheet)

That drafting error could end up making for a whole mess of litigation.  While PG&E certainly didn’t intend it to be an anti-Walmart tool, it could end up being just that.  It’s almost enough to make you think about supporting this mess.  Think about it. Walmart wants to open a new store in say, Sacramento, where there is a public power provider.  Sure, it’s not like progressives would want to mess with the local public power provider, but a tool is a tool, right?  Of course, it could end up fighting more than just Walmart, and could morph into a NIMBYists dream.

PG&E went out alone on this measure, and the language is just terrible. Riddled with errors, and the concept itself is just loathsome. Introducing a new constitutional amendment for a supermajority election requirement? Yikes!

All of this is happening as San Francisco looks to finally kick their Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) into gear, and as Marin County just signed their power contracts.  This is a petty move by PG&E to bring their San Francisco fight to the whole state. It’s shortsighted, but they’ll have millions of dollars to pass this stinker. There won’t be a lot of money opposing it, just common sense. So, be sure to tell your friends of all political persuasions just how ridiculous this one is. Defeating this one is going to have to go grassroots-style.