Do state-regulated monopolies need more power over regulators?
Despite a state law that bars them from making direct campaign contributions, public utilities in Georgia are not exactly voiceless. At the Public Service Commission, at the General Assembly and in the governor’s office, they wield enormous influence and pretty much get whatever they want.
In 2009, for example, when Georgia Power demanded the right to start charging ratepayers for nuclear power plants years before those plants start producing electricity, the company put more than 70 registered lobbyists on its payroll to plead its cause at the General Assembly. Sure enough, despite protests from experts at the PSC and elsewhere who warned it was a bad deal, the company got what it wanted.
As a result, you’re now paying higher electricity rates today for plants that won’t provide you with a kilowatt of electricity until 2017, and if that investment goes sour, you — not the company — will be on the hook to repay it.
The man who sponsored that bill, state Sen. Don Balfour of Gwinnett County, is now back with another bill. If enacted into law, Senate Bill 160 would for the first time in decades allow regulated utilities to make direct political contributions in all state races except for the PSC. (Employees and contractors of regulated utilities already have that right.)
As AJC reporter Margaret Newkirk noted last week:
“In 2010, Georgia Power employees gave $29,315 to state campaigns, records show. The Troutman Sanders law firm, which represents Georgia Power and many other companies, gave $98,500.
In neighboring Alabama, where state law allows utility-led PACs to donate, Alabama Power, Georgia Power’s sister company, gave $877,119 to state campaigns in 2010.”
(For the record, Georgia Power says it is neutral on Balfour’s legislation.)
According to Balfour, current Georgia law barring such donations by regulated utilities is “blatantly unconstitutional” in light of a recent Supreme Court decision that gave corporations more freedom to influence campaigns.
However, Balfour’s claim is itself blatantly incorrect. If our state law were so clearly unconstitutional, it would have been challenged by now and thrown out. Instead, a coalition calling itself “Georgia Fair Speech Coalition” is trying to enact the change legislatively.
There’s a good reason for that. In its controversial Citizens United decision, the U.S. Supreme Court did rule that corporations could not be barred from spending their own money to express their own political opinions through so-called “independent expenditures”. However, the ruling said nothing about campaign finance laws that limit or forbid corporate contributions to political candidates.
More directly, Citizens United did not address the issue of campaign donations by state-regulated monopolies. After all, these are not private corporations subject to the discipline of the marketplace. Their only discipline comes from state officials.
State officials determine how much profit those companies can make; they dictate what those companies can charge their customers. Their customers, in turn, have no legal choice but to pay the rate they are charged. In Georgia Power’s case, for example, its customers are being forced to finance nuclear plants they may never use through a law that was passed by legislators and signed by the governor.
Changing the law to give regulated utilities even more influence over those same elected officials is a terrible idea.
– Jay Bookman
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112 comments Add your comment
Disgusted
February 28th, 2011
4:16 pm
If I had my own business, and my employees thought they needed to form/join a union, then I would need to review whether or not I’m taking care of them as much as they take care of me. If I’m treating them well and compensating them for their work, they should not have a desire to unionize.
Precisely. The presence of a union at a workplace is proof positive of the existence of bad management at some point in the past. Workers don’t band together to form a union in the absence of abusive workplace practices. Any management expert will tell you that. It’s one of the first things students learn in an MBA program. And to assume, as people like Dusty do, that those abusive practices won’t return once a union dissolves is to be either incredibly obtuse or else horribly disingenous. Whenever you encounter a workplace with a union, you can assume the presence of bad management.
Hillbilly Deluxe
February 28th, 2011
4:20 pm
Disgusted
When I had people working for me, if they quit, I wanted to talk to them and know why they were leaving. Sometimes, I was glad to see them go but I still wanted to know their reasons. I tried to use it as a learning tool.
Dusty
February 28th, 2011
4:23 pm
HillBilly,
Most large companies are designed into set areas with managers over each. Workers can report illegal movements to their managers. If there is no response, they can report to the governmental agency or the justice system as whether something illegal is going on. Discrimination, minimum wage, unheathy conditions, are a few things covered by law. Salary arrangements are usually set at hiring with whatever assets or privileges are given by the company, including insurance, raise rates, vacations etc.
I’m not saying that always works. But unions do not always work either. Protests are not illegal. but I believe the laws covering most situations are working as well as unions.
Unions in Wisconsin are obviously being used as political tools. I do not think that is a healthy mix or good for the country in any way.
George W
February 28th, 2011
4:31 pm
yep
Hillbilly Deluxe
February 28th, 2011
4:31 pm
Dusty
When I used to work in construction, I was told many times to go into a ditch without a trench box, which is illegal as it can be, but it happens every day. I always refused to do it, but my financial situation was such I could afford to get fired, some folks can’t. Next time you hear about a construction worker getting killed in a cave in, it’s about a 95% chance there will have been no trench box in use. That’s just one example.
George W
February 28th, 2011
4:33 pm
Hillbilly….what made you choose that line of work?
@@
February 28th, 2011
4:40 pm
SoCo:
It’s Jack Loveall, then…don’t know if he still is, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union 588 in Roseville, CA.
What? No cries of cronyism/nepotism with six family members hauling in the loot?
Funny thing is, the same members who scream about BIG CORPORATIONS, generous salaries for CEOs have no problem with their union leaders getting paid the big bucks as long as they get what they want.
Double standards?
Not all the union members are/were impressed with Loveall. Anybody who sought to run against him was met with the usual strong-arm tactics employed by unions. Intimidation against union workers who supported his opponents.
There’s dirty politics inside unions too. The public just doesn’t get to see what goes on there.
@@
February 28th, 2011
4:46 pm
Hillbilly:
Next time you hear about a construction worker getting killed in a cave in, it’s about a 95% chance there will have been no trench box in use. That’s just one example.
And OSHA? A useless government bureaucracy?
I’m off to get under a blanket. I’ve been working outside and I’m FREEZING!
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
February 28th, 2011
4:49 pm
Dusty
Unions deliver far more than protests. That’s the only thing the media seizes upon, because that usually leads to ratings. What usually goes undocumented is the charitable work that unions do. You don’t see reports when contract negotiations go smoothly either.
The thing is, you will see what it is you choose to see, regardless of the facts laying before you.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
February 28th, 2011
4:53 pm
What? No cries of cronyism/nepotism with six family members hauling in the loot?
Not from me. If that were the union that I belonged to, then I’d do more than just cry some bumper sticker slogan. I don’t have that gene that makes me automatically cry about stuff like that. I, for one, know life isn’t always fair or right. I’m a firm believer in that, when you do wrong, wrong comes back on you.
ODDOWL
February 28th, 2011
8:06 pm
Non-rich White Guys who vote Republican are responsible for this ripoff by the utilities companies. Remember Republicans always say one thing and do just the opposite. They yell tax cuts, tax cuts and then they raise taxes on the middle class and cut taxes on the rich, the corporations and the corporate bosses.
Z
February 28th, 2011
9:26 pm
I believe it is called Corporate SOCIALISM..the people take all the risks, and corporations take all the profits..