Pacific Gas & Electric — Nice Try, Cocksuckers

Of all the political races that captured the public’s attention yesterday, an initiative in California could have been the most disastrous. And it almost passed.

Corrupt politicians come and go. Bone-stupid simpleminded ballot measures last forever.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is a huge utility monopoly with millions of California hostages customers. PG&E spent $46 million promoting Proposition 16 — the Taxpayers’ Right To Vote Act.

(Here are some more links.)

What a sweet innocent-sounding name. What could be more American than taxpayers having the right to vote? Oh wait, they already do.

If Proposition 16 had passed — and it only lost by five percentage points — it would have required a two-thirds vote before a municipality could switch from a private utility company (like, for instance, PG&E) to a city-operated utility.

If this corporate power grab had passed, it might have started a nationwide trend, like everything else that starts in California. Hopefully this twisted idea has been nipped in the bud by California’s voters.

PG&E has already defeated almost every California city’s attempt to operate their own utilities. They’ve got it down to a science: Spend millions of dollars on an advertising blitzkrieg extolling the virtues of the private sector — free enterprise! — versus those lazy inept nine-to-five government bureaucrats. Works every time. Or almost every time.

But apparently the playing field just wasn’t quite tilted and unlevel enough.

$46 million down the tubes. But that’s no problem; PG&E has millions of captive “customers” throughout California. Guess whose utility rates are about to go up and up and up.