That One Can Smile, and Smile, and Be a Villain

It’s from Hamlet, ranting about his family in the first act:

O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables--mete it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain--
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.

There’s something rotten in the state of California, and it’s called Proposition 16. And the people behind it, they smile and smile and tell you right to your face that this measure will give you more control over how the government spends your money, but in fact it’s really about stripping you of control and making sure that the state’s utility companies can retain their monopoly power.

Here’s the Official Summary provided to voters:

Official summary: Requires two-thirds voter approval before local governments provide electricity service to new customers or establish a community choice electricity program using public funds or bonds.

And here’s how Pacific Gas & Electric, which has provided all of the money funding the pro-16 effort, lies to you:

Their website is called www.taxpayersrighttovote.com. And on the home page, you are presented with this sensible and reassuring message:

Right now local governments in California can spend public money or incur public debt to take over private electric businesses without letting local voters have the final say. That's why California needs Prop. 16. In tough economic times like these, voters deserve the right to have the final say about how our money is spent. Learn more about Prop 16 and join us to stand up for the Taxpayers Right to Vote - Yes on Prop 16.

First of all, local governments are not seeking to “take over private electric businesses,” either with or without letting local voters voice their opinions. The program in question is called Community Choice Aggregation, and it aims to provide competition in markets where one of the big public utilities has a monopoly. Customers may already choose, as individuals, whether they want to participate in the CCA or not, which sounds an awful lot like the free market at work. There’s a good summary of the program, as it was implemented in San Francisco, here.

So that’s one lie, right up front. An outright lie, a flat-out falsehood. But the bulk of their friendly message, their whole “we’re spending these millions of dollars to look out for you” campaign, turns on the notion that “voters deserve the right to have the final say about how our money is spent.” And ordinarily, I would consider voting for such a measure because yeah, if public money is going to be spent, then the public should have a voice in that decision.

But the thing they simply don’t mention at all on their home page, is in the first sentence of the official summary above: that any vote on a CCA program would require a two-thirds majority to pass.

Think about it. 66.6% percent of the voters would have to agree before any CCA program could go forward, anywhere, any time, every time. This is the entire thrust of Proposition 16, and how it actually denies choice to voters: because Pacific Gas & Electric knows damn well that if you required a two-thirds vote on everything, you couldn’t get a post office named for Mother Teresa.

PG&E doesn’t get to a discussion of this element of the measure until you’re three layers deep in the site, and here’s what they finally say, buried in the middle of the page:

Two-thirds voter approval is the standard for local General Obligation bonds for non-school related infrastructure and for local special taxes, both of which put taxpayers on the hook. Since 2002, California voters have given 2/3 voter approval to hundreds of important local projects with two-thirds majorities.

So because everybody else is doing it, then it’s fine. But I think we’re all agreed that California has some devastating problems, and one of them is the two-thirds-approval requirement for all statewide budgets and any proposed tax increases. This means that minority Republicans have been able to block dozens of budget and tax initiatives at the legislative level, which is why so many of them go out to voters who are more easily swindled. I’ve written before about this failed attempt at direct democracy in California, so I won’t rehash the argument. But when a state is riding the road to ruin because of policies already in place, telling you that a measure should pass because it’s just like other measures already in place, that’s just pernicious and evil.

And that’s how they really lie to you. They tell you it’s about making sure you have choice, while rigging the system so that no one has any choice but to keep PG&E, or Southern California Gas, as their exclusive energy provider. No competition for lower rates, no incentive to produce clean energy, all the hideous faults of a monopoly system and none of the advantages of free-market competition.

O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

RESOURCES: There’s a good, thorough summary of just why Prop 16 is “the worst measure on the June ballot" here, and a more balanced summary of the arguments at a lovely site called Ballotpedia, here.