| Because what happens if you do? Why, you might have to actually ask questions about utility rates and profit margins. Oops, no! Wrong answer. If you do, you'll get shunned by your fellow GOP members & scolded by the party establishment.  We can't have the PSC doing it's damn job after all: PSC President Twinkle Cavanaugh likened even holding a formal hearing to socialism, environmentalism, and unemployment. Well, just so we can discuss this issue rationally... John Archibald at Al.com has the latest turn in this twisty story of industry influence and political posturing. There's a penalty to be paid in the Alabama GOP when you question the motives of Alabama Power: Are rates too high? I don't know. Maybe it's time to take a formal look at it. Which is pretty much what Dunn said. And you'd have thought he had outed himself as Barack Obama's secret lover. The rebuke -- the revulsion -- was swift. Dunn was refused admittance to a statehouse function, he said. He was called before House Speaker Mike Hubbard and told he was "taking his job too seriously." He was labeled a tree-hugger and a radical environmentalist - a bait-and-switch that would be amusing if it wasn't so effective - and blasted as a conspirator in a plot to kill coal mining. Dunn was marginalized in his own party because he did what he was elected to do: regulate the utilities, and not simply lie down and sleep with them.
Surely Archibald isn't surprised by this fact and it's hard to believe that Dunn thought his fellow GOP commissioners would be at all willing to shine a light on utility shenanigans. After all, Twinkle ran on a platform to keep Barack Obama and abortion out of Alabama. As the Al.com commenters point out - she's been successful: Twinkle's leadership works for Alabama. When she ran for office she promised (1) to fight abortion and (2) to fight Obama. And not ONE abortion has been performed at the PSC on her watch and Obama has YET to set foot in a PSC meeting. They ought to put her picture on money.
Keep on fighting for us, Mr. Dunn! Even if it's probably a losing cause, it's certainly reassuring to see at least one public official in Alabama who's actually working in the public interest. |
