PG&E's Prop 16 was defeated by California voters back in June, but this article has a lot of info on the various games PG&E has been playing for decades:
http://exiledonline.com/how-pge-plans-to-screw-the-golden-state-by-enshrining-its-corporate-energy-monopoly-in-the-california-constitution/snip
For starters, PG&E was one of the prime backers of the catastrophic law that deregulated California’s energy sector, which led to rampant fraud, manipulation and speculation in the electricity market by energy-trading companies like Enron, causing artificial electricity shortages, massive black-outs, 20-fold increases in electricity rates and, ultimately, to PG&E’s own bankruptcy.
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Instead of letting the deregulated market do its magic and let a more competitive company step in, PG&E lobbied California’s pliable legislators for a 40% rate increase and two rounds of bailouts that came to a total of $16 billion, courtesy of PG&E customers. In fact, the utility’s 5 million ratepayers are still paying for the company’s mistakes through mandatory fees. By the time PG&E’s bankruptcy-related debts are paid off in 2012, ratepayers will each have dished out around $1,500 to keep it from collapsing.
But wait, there’s more. Not only does PG&E enjoy a government-sanctioned monopoly throughout most of Northern California, but, on top of all the bailouts, California legislators have guaranteed the company 11% profit margins. It’s the kind of risk-free free market that corporate dreams are made of, allowing PG&E to squeeze $1.22 billion in pure profit from its ratepayer-suckers in 2009. Best of all, PG&E didn’t have to divert any of that cash towards paying down its debts — that’s what the customers are there for, remember? To show its gratitude, PG&E constantly jacks up electricity rates, skimps on service and generally makes its customers pay the highest electricity rates in the state. According to the Fresno Bee , PG&E charges double the average electricity rates of most public utilities and one-third more than its private counterparts in Southern California.
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To escape PG&E clutches, municipalities up and down California have been eyeing a 2002 law known as “community choice aggregation,” or CAA, which allows California cities and counties to become energy wholesalers who purchase power on behalf of their residents. The formation of CCAs poses a direct threat to PG&E’s monopoly by giving ratepayers greater bargaining power and allowing local governments to buy power from any energy producer — independent wind and solar energy companies, for instance — while using PG&E just for its power lines. In effect, it allows Californians to tap into and directly benefit from their state’s energy deregulation. “CCAs hold the potential for a substantial improvement in the energy market and increased efficiency,” determined a 2005 study of community choice aggregation by the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
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To protect its racket, PG&E has been waging war on uppity municipalities trying to enter the electricity business. Ever since the CCA law came into effect in 2002, the utility has been racing up and down the state, squashing local ballot measures that would enact CCAs with scare tactics and expensive disinformation campaigns... 
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