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Question of the day

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Illinois

As I reminded Capitol Fax readers this morning, last fall Governor Blagojevich said any ICC commissioner who voted for ComEd’s controversial power auction plan (which could raise electric rates by at least 20 percent) would be guilty of “either a serious neglect of duty or gross incompetence by the ICC.”

Both of those charges, serious neglect of duty and gross incompetence, are legal grounds for dismissal. In essence, he was threatening to fire them.

Now that all five commissioners, including newly appointed but not yet confirmed chairman Charles Box, have voted to approve the plan, do you think the governor ought to make good on his threat to boot them all, or do you think he ought to let this fight die out and choose to forget it? Why or why not?

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 6:15 am

Comments

I think the bloggers on this site ought to print this article out, and mail it to the Virility King with a note saying simple, “Well?”

Our lives have turned into a series of “can’t trusts” - can’t trust the police, can’t trust state government, can’t trust federal government and so on and so on. Very depressing.

Comment by Ex-Newfie Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 6:19 am
Newfie is dead on…

You just can’t tell who is pulling your chain these days.

Corollary: Everyone is pulling your chain.

But I am sure whoever gets voted in NEXT as governor/mayor/senator/representative/county board member next on a platform of ‘anti-corruption’ will clean the mess up their PREDECCESORS created.

NOT.

Comment by Slash Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 6:44 am
I tend to agree. Maybe someone needs to remind the Governor that he said this. Maybe he forgot this pledge also, and he won’t follow through. Won’t he have a hard time filling 5 positions on one board considering the difficulty he’s had just getting a chair, like Box, who isn’t even confirmed yet?

Just another reason why I’ve lost faith and trust in the man. Apparently he can’t remember what he says one speech to the next.

This is not the way I wanted to start my day. I want good news for once.

Comment by Tessa Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 6:52 am
Isn’t the commission supposed to be independent?
If so, it hardly seems right to fire them for an unpopular decision.

What we seem to have here, again, is evidence of a governor who is not very smart. And he appoints people who aren’t very smart, certainly not smart enough to negotiate with Con Ed, where the higher level execs no doubt ARE very smart.

Or maybe we have the usual Blago politics. Take credit for incompetently flailing at some issue and hope the voters remember that, and not what really happened.

Nope, rates are going up, all the posturing notwithstanding. Could that have been prevented or at least the blow softened. We’ll never know because Blago’s commissioners, like Blago, are no doubt too mentally challenged to envision viable alternatives.

So, in addition to paying high property taxes, paying for my kids’ education, and saving substantial sums of money for my unstatepensioned retirement, I have to pay higher electric rates soon. Much higher.

Time for a state tax rebate and for a big reduction in force in our porky state government ranks to help pay for it. We can no longer afford to carry all those state govt lifers and political hacks and our electric bills too.

Comment by Cassandra Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 7:33 am
Ah yes, G-Rod strikes again!! The pinball bounces left the wind blows right. The rule of law, promises, promises. whatever feels good today.

The decision to retain or fire will come down to two things:
1) Will the Tribune/Chicago TV run with the story and hold his feet to the fire?

2) How much have these commisioners paid the Guvs campaign fund to be on this board. Remember this, in order to be on ANY State Board you HAD to sign a pledge of allegiance to the Almighty Rod and that you would not criticize him in any way.

Comment by BIG R.PH Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 8:19 am
I would recommend he make political hay out of the situation and follow through, firing all five. He is on the politically winning side of this argument, and he can use it to his advantage. It will show backbone and leadership, which are atributes he so desperately needs to display to win over voters who’ve given up on him.

If he accepts this lying down, he might as well stay down.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 9:12 am
Rates will go up for one simple reason…higher tax revenues from utility taxes!

The good news is that higher energy prices might actually encourage us to stop wasting so much energy and reduce drains on our economy in the long run.

If word of higher prices is spread well in advance consumers may even go on a shopping spree for more energy efficient products…further raising tax revenues.

The Governor publically complains, but appears to have his hands tied, so he wins with the public and the energy companies still get what they want, while creating the equivalent of a carbon tax to make environmentalists happy…all the while generating more tax revenue to fund new programs.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 9:17 am
It the Governorn attempts to follow through with his earlier threat I suspect the Commissioners will fight the attempted dismissal and based upon my understanding of the law the Commissioners will win. In the interim, the state will incur needless and expense legal fees.

The current situation has occurred because of the electric deregulation legislation passed a number of years ago by the General Assembly and signed by Governor Edgar. That legislation eliminated the regulatory environment had existed for the better part of the 20th century. It stripped away much of the authority of the ICC to regulate, by allowing the electric utilities to spin off their power generation plants into separate legal entities that are beyond the authority of the ICC to control for the most part.

Unfortunately, as he has been wont to do during his term in office, rather than attempting to understand the root causes of a problem and putting forth some type of reasoned alternative to correct the problem, the Governor pandered to the public by threatening to remove the Commissioners from the position. The Commissioners, to their credit, evaluated the ComEd proposal in the context of the legal authority proposal and reached a decision based on applying the law to the facts.

Now whether you like the law is a different matter. I don’t, but the alternative for Commissioners would have been to take an action that was contrary to the law, which would have resulted in litigation that ComEd would have eventually won.

I’m disappointed in your question Rich. Rather than asking whether the Governor should follow through on his threat, how about asking whether the Governor and the General Assembly need to go back and revisit electric degregulation legislatively.

Comment by Anon Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 9:40 am
The Governor will not go through with his bold pronouncement and fire all 5 commissioners. He has a track record of making silly promises and then backing down (keno, campaign finance, selling the Tollway headquarters, etc.).

He should hope this latest non-bluff bluff is quickly forgotten. If he goes ahead and follows through on his word at least one of the commissioners would challenge it. The Governor’s legal theory that approving an auction plan equals neglect of duty or gross incompetence is shaky at best. Can you imagine the field day editorial boards would have with Blagojevich accusing others of gross incompetence?

Finally, the auction plan cannot be reversed simply by the firing of the current commissioners. A new commmission would have to overturn the old commission and that would take time. Good luck on trying to sell Emil and Ricky on approving 5 new commissioners selected to kill the auction. It would make the hearings on Marty Cohen look like a lovefest.

Comment by Navin Johnson Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 9:45 am
Anon 9:40 and 9:45 are right on target. Bottom line, the legislature screwed this up when they bought the utility line that deregulation of a natural monopoly would be a good thing for customers. A new commission would still be looking at the old law and very likely would reach the same conclusion.

The legislature needs to act and act quickly, if the rate hike is to be avoided. If they don’t act, every challenger in every race should run on this issue as it has legs….

Comment by Anon Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 11:19 am
Silly promises? Don’t forget the Governor backed book of the month he was going to send to all kids in Illinois. I agree with 9:17 - This is a revenue stream of additional utility tax.

Comment by jimbo Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 1:20 pm
I thought the State of Illinois went to a unit tax on gas and electricity some years ago (so much per therm, etc.) to avoid the higher taxes on higher prices problem.

Comment by Anon sequitur Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 1:42 pm
PS. It may be the local taxes that are based on a percentage. So now go complain to your local officials.

Comment by Anon sequitur Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 1:44 pm
Better than that.why hasn’t any reporter ask him about plans to raise taxes.Can we get the same promise this time that he gave last time.

Comment by DOWNSTATE Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 2:35 pm
The only way he can get my vote this time is if he promises TO raise taxes. There’s no money for anything fun. What’s the point of being a drunken sailor if there’s no booze or whoores?

I agree with Cassandra, Rod is not very smart. Him and GW are both truly not smart and think that they have us all fooled.

Comment by Mike's Used Sport's Section Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 4:09 pm
Either way, the gov looks like an idiot… as usual…

Comment by Lovie's Leather Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 5:56 pm
Navin - you’re right. I forgot that Emil gets a boatload of cash from ComEd, as does the Guv. Silly me.

Comment by Ex-Newfie Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 7:44 pm
Ex-Newfie,

There are few things our Governor does that amuse me more than his stance on issues ComEd holds new and dear to its heart (if it has one).

He appointed Ed Hurley as chairman of the ICC (pro ComEd) and Lula Ford as a Commissioner (pro ComEd) in 2003. The Governor then went out of his way to do absolutely nothing on promoting a meaningful law in regard to renewable energy (opposed by ComEd). Then to cap off 2003 he endorsed ComEd’s veto session effort to hike rates for ComEd customers in order to finance its attempted purchase of Illinois Power (really really supported by ComEd). Thankfully the Speaker stopped that ridiculous idea in its tracks.

Now that reelection season is upon us he has positioned himself as the champion of the consumer and implacable enemy of ComEd. We get stirring rhetoric supporting Marty Cohen (nomination killed by ComEd) and damning rhetoric opposing auction based rate hikes (which were just approved by the ICC).

The Governor can afford this abrupt about face because with so much money in the bank it doesn’t matter one bit if ComEd never gives him another dime. In addition, his current stance is simply positioning for re-election. Putting aside his rhetoric, he hasn’t achieved anything substantive that actually hurts ComEd.

Emil doesn’t have enough fundraising ability to blow off ComEd and he doesn’t give a damn about appearing to be on the side of the utility consumer in any event. Not laudable, but at least it is straightforward.

As the old saying goes, I laugh so I don’t cry.

Comment by Navin Johnson Wednesday, Jan 25, 06 @ 9:16 pm
Navin: Also thrown into the Governor’s mix of trying to look like he’s protecting consumers while kissing ComEd’s butt is the fact that he appointed a FOE (Friend of Emil) to head the state agency which acts as a watchdog for the 13 nukies in the state, who, surprise, surprise, is also a friend of ComEd’s CEO.

You’re right - you laugh so you don’t cry!!!!

Comment by Ex-Newfie Thursday, Jan 26, 06 @ 6:35 am