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 One of the worst infractions that a columnist could commit is to write the same column twice.
That alone is worthy of unrelenting flogging, but to do it in consecutive weeks is unfathomable. If you read last week’s column where I offered a dissenting view of Proposition 17, today’s column might have a déjà vu feeling about it.
If you accepted the arguments against Prop.17 you then by default are most likely opposed to Prop. 16. In the macro they are the same ballot measure presenting the same problematic concerns. We need only ask a few fundamental questions to see just how similar Prop.16 is to Prop.17.
What would Prop.16 do if passed?
According to its proponents Prop.16 “does only one thing… it ensures that voters will have the final say—by requiring a vote—when local leaders decide to spend public dollars or incur public debt to go into the retail electricity business.”
Like Prop.17, Prop.16 uses inclusive language to portray itself as protecting interests of voters.
But it is a very elegant way to say Pacific Gas and Electric, which is already fighting efforts by Marin County and San Francisco to start their own utility companies, wish to pass a ballot measure that would force any local governments that want to establish electrical service must do so by wining a 2/3 majority vote.
Who is the sponsor of Prop.16?
Like Prop.17, which is principally sponsored by Mercury Insurance, Prop.16 also has a primary benefactor—PG&E. The mere fact PG&E plans to spend up to $35 million dollars in support of Prop.16 tells us that for all of the language about voter choice this is a ballot measure about maintaining their monopoly.
It also raises a similar question that I put forth last week: When was the last time PG&E spent $25-$35 million dollars, on behalf of the voter void of voter demands or court rulings?
PG&E would argue Prop.16 is about fairness. Fairness for whom? PG&E shareholders?
In the spirit of full disclosure, I was once employed by PG&E in its government relations department. I applauded the company’s public stand in opposition against anti-affirmative action Prop.209 and the anti same-sex marriage Prop.8.
But corporations are about their bottom line, ultimately making them amoral in scope. Prop.16 masquerades as voter’s choice, but it is about the self-interest of PG&E, which may or may not be congruent with the interest of voters. Moreover, it hardly seems prudent to have a statewide ballot measure that allows voters of, say, Alameda County to influence the self-determination of voters in Marin County on a local matter.
Perhaps the worst aspect that Propositions 16 and 17 share is the profound misuse of the initiative process.
What began in 1911 as an amendment to the state Constitution, establishing the California initiative process, giving voters the right to enact legislation, providing the electorate with a counter measure against deep pocket interests such as Southern Pacific Railroad, has become the “initiative industrial complex.”
Somehow, we’ve maintained the myth that it is a citizen’s initiative process but the cottage industry of signature gathers, campaign consultants, and legal services have all but dispelled that belief leaving only the illusion of a grassroots effort as the remaining remnant of a bygone era.
It’s a short list as to who can come up with the requisite resources to place something on the ballot. The combined efforts of PG&E and Mercury Insurance may total in excess of $45 million—that can hardly be considered a people’s effort.
For as flawed as the initiative process has become, particularly over the past 30 years, PG&E and Mercury Insurance unabashedly mock the system leaving no doubt beyond the sanitized wording on their campaign literature that Prop.16 and 17 are corporate funded initiatives serving the interest of corporations and their shareholders.
Assuming momentarily there is a ubiquitous good to be realized, Prop.16 and 17, represent a more dangerous precedent that in no way serves the public interest.
Have we now reached a low in our democracy where the self-interest of the corporations can be realized by simply placing a few focus group tested words on the ballot and support it with millions?
If either Prop.16 or 17 pass on the June 8 ballot the answer will be an unequivocal yes.
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