Friday, 20. February 2009, 02:10:34
1982 - George Deukmejian is elected Governor of California, beginning 16 years of Republican Rule in California.
1986 - Three justices appointed by previous Governor Jerry Brown are voted off the California Supreme Court after business intersts mount an aggressive campaign against them, ostensibly for their opposition to the death penalty, allowing Republican Governor George Deukmejian to stack the court with pro-business conservatives.
1990 - Republican Pete Wilson is elected Governor, and begins an aggressive campain to deregulate energy in the state of California.
From Wikipedia:
In the mid-90's, under Republican Governor Pete Wilson, California began deregulating the electricity industry...
The deregulation called for the Investor Owned Utilities, or IOUs, (primarily Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric) to sell off a significant part of their power generation to wholly private, unregulated companies such as AES, Reliant, and Enron. The buyers of those power plants then became the wholesalers from which the IOUs needed to buy the electricity that they used to own themselves. While the selling of power plants to private companies was labeled "deregulation", in fact... the California legislature expected that there would be regulation by the FERC which would prevent manipulation. The FERC's job, in theory, is to regulate and enforce Federal law, preventing market manipulation and price manipulation of energy markets. When called upon to regulate the out-of-state privateers which were clearly manipulating the California energy market, the FERC hardly reacted at all and did not take serious action against Enron, Reliant, or any other privateers. FERC's resources are in fact quite sparse in comparison to their entrusted task of policing the energy market. Lobbying by private companies may also have slowed down regulation and enforcement.
Read more...
WIDGETIZE