(Prop 16 has been packaged as the "Taxpayers' Right To Vote" Act, and the TV and airwaves have already been blanketed with ads supporting it, all paid for with corporate MONOPOLY money)
Every election cycle has an awful state ballot proposition, with plenty of corporate funding to fool voters. For the June primary, it’s Prop 16 – a thinly veiled power grab by PG&E to shut down competition to keeps its monopoly. As more California cities consider providing their own energy through Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), PG&E feels threatened that consumers will finally have a choice. Prop 16 would require that local governments get a two-thirds vote of the electorate before entering into CCA agreements – efforts that PG&E will surely throw millions into defeating.
Ironically, Prop 16 only needs a bare majority to pass – to mandate a two-thirds threshold before consumers can quit PG&E. And while CCA efforts would then face impossible odds at prevailing, it’s not like PG&E needs two-thirds approval before it becomes your energy provider. Just like health insurance companies fear the “public option” because it would keep them honest, PG&E is bankrolling the Prop 16 campaign to block competition. And with an expected conservative voter turnout in June, Prop 16 could very well pass.
It should be obvious by now that two-thirds majority requirements have ruined the state. Although Democrats have a permanent majority in the state legislature, Republicans call the shots when it comes to passing a budget – just because we are the only state in the nation to require a two-thirds majority for both the budget and taxes. At the local level, cities are being forced to make devastating cuts – because any local tax increase requires (in most cases) a two-thirds vote by the electorate. It’s a tyranny of the minority, and the last thing we need in California to be even more dysfunctional is another such measure.
But PG&E has funded all of the $6.5 million behind Prop 16 so far – and as voters start paying attention to the June ballot propositions, expect them to dwarf this figure in no time. They hope to tap into populist anger in these tough times against politicians, saying that the public should have a “right to vote” before local government goes into the energy business. What they’re really afraid of is fair competition, and their failure to live up to minimum renewable energy goals. It’s about killing Community Choice Aggregation.
http://www.laprogressive.com/the-environment/californias-prop-16-worst-measure-june-ballot/
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