Take-Charge Governor Forfeits on Energy

Where was Gray Davis when the lights went out?

Where was the governor when the rates went up, when the bonds to pay for electricity came up short, when the latest round of blackouts swept across California?

He was doing what he does best. He was raising money for his reelection campaign.

While Davis’ hand-picked chairperson of the Public Utilities Commission, former campaign aide Loretta Lynch, was preparing to announce rate increases of up to 40% for some of California’s energy consumers, the governor himself was busy hitting up lobbyists for campaign contributions at a Palm Springs golf tournament. In Gray’s world, when the going gets tough, the tough go country-clubbing.

When it became known that Lynch was considering approving a rate increase, Davis immediately tried to distance himself from her. Only a year ago, Davis had appointed Lynch, a San Francisco trial lawyer and longtime Democratic campaign staffer, as the state’s top energy official. Throughout the crisis, his aides had been meeting with her on a regular basis, while portraying Davis himself as being the key player to all energy related deliberations. But when Lynch stepped up to take the heat, the governor was strangely passive and distant.

“I can’t order or direct an independent body,” he told reporters. “I’ve not given any advice to them on the subject of a rate increase.”

For the last several months, Davis had made it clear that a rate boost was unacceptable. When the utilities requested an increase last fall, he publicly argued against it. In recent weeks, when state legislators and even his own advisors began to come to terms with the need for a rate hike, Davis said no. But as the crisis worsened, and the options narrowed, he grew silent. Suddenly Lynch, who is destined to go down in California political history as the Rose Bird of electricity, was in command. And Davis was a mere spectator.

Where was the governor who announced in the first days of his administration that his appointees would not speak publicly or announce policy without his permission? Where was the governor who stated that it was the job of the independently elected state Legislature to implement his vision? The governor who claimed it was the responsibility of California’s judges to reflect the views he expressed in his own election? The governor who has done everything but rip the tongues out of the mouths of advisors who have strayed even slightly from the company line?

It’s difficult for longtime Davis watchers to reconcile such autocratic tendencies with this new image of the governor tied to the political railroad tracks while the evil commissioners ignore his pleas for mercy. Yet when the full PUC prepared to vote on Lynch’s proposal, Davis did not even attend the meeting. He did not, at least publicly, urge the commissioners to reject the rate hike. He certainly did not take to the airwaves calling for Californians to join him in opposition. He has therefore forfeited his right to rail against the fates when his own appointees go ahead and pass a rate increase.

As Davis prepares to seek reelection, he already has about $28 million in the bank, and he has strong Democratic majorities in the state Legislature. But he also has a state full of voters who have just been told that their power bills are going to increase by thousands of dollars each year.

What’s a poor governor to do?

When faced with angry voters, a political leader has two choices. He can talk to them honestly and directly, explain that difficult choices must be made and take responsibility for the course of action he has charted. Or he can blame their problems on someone else and go to the golf course with his contributors.

Voters will forgive honest policy differences, especially if their leaders have the courage to confront them with difficult truths. They are much less likely to forgive politicians who can’t, or won’t, lead.

If Davis continues to play the part of victim, Californians will look elsewhere for a genuine leader in 2002.