Prop 1: Diary of a Movement Crushed by Money

By Paul Pickett

[Editor’s note: Paul Pickett is a regular OP&L contributor and a former PUD Commissioner who volunteered with the Thurston Public Power Initiative, and wrote this personal account.]

November 18, 2011

It’s hard to believe this is happening. I wonder where we’ll be in a year?

My fellow PUD Commissioner Chris Stearns has been circulating a petition to do a feasibility study to see how Thurston PUD could get into the electric utility business. It’s made for lively discussions at PUD meetings.

A group of local activists had a meeting tonight to form a group pursuing a vote to authorize the PUD to enter the electric business. They are a good bunch of people, a solid core who know how to organize. But are they enough to overcome PSE’s likely counterattack and win an election in less than a year?

January 10, 2012

Holy smokes, this is getting serious. The Thurston Public Power Initiative launched last weekend. They now have petitions, flyers, a name, and a website. They came to the PUD asking for the feasibility study.

I also was contacted by a lobbyist for PSE. I had lunch with him and he made vague threats about bad things happening if we went forward with the study. At the meeting tonight I called out PSE for being a bully, but we postponed the vote on the feasibility study.

March 13, 2012

The PUD Board voted to do a “preliminary business assessment” for the PUD entering the electric utility business. We decided to look at “baby steps” – or “eating an elephant one bite at a time,” as Commissioner Corwin put it. Of course the elephant won’t like one bite any more than being swallowed whole.

Meanwhile the Initiative is on a roll. They are picking up lots of volunteers and building momentum. But can they get the signatures by June?

April 2, 2012

I announced that I am resigning from the PUD at the end of May. It feels weird, but liberating too.

July 6, 2012

Today the Initiative filed their signatures – over 15,000! It’s amazing! They just kept picking up momentum and volunteers – over 100 at last count. A lot of people out there are pissed at PSE! I wasn’t sure they’d get to this point, but the campaign has caught fire.

Meanwhile PSE has hired a Seattle political consultant, who recruited three former elected officials and cooked up an “astroturf group”: the “Alliance to Protect Thurston Power” (or “…to protect PSE profits”). The main consultant ran Governor Gregoire’s last campaign. Not a good sign. They have started their FUD campaign (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt): “Risky! Expensive!”

Now the real work begins…

July 18, 2012

The Auditor certified the signatures last week – it’s official!

The Olympian ran a wildly inaccurate editorial about the Initiative.

August 15, 2012

The Initiative has really cranked up. They’ve been leafleting and attending debates.

We finished the Voters Pamphlet statement [for the Yes campaign] today. The PSE triumvirate of Munro, Oberquell, and Mah put their names on the No statement. The messaging from the political consultants is clear now – disinformation, distortion, fear, confusion. You can’t refute 300 words of BS with 75 words of rebuttal.

September16, 2012

The PUD electric utility study was released last week. It didn’t have the effect I’d hoped. The No campaign still hollers about “no plan”. But the PUD would be wasting taxpayers’ money to do a full feasibility study with no electric authority to use it!

I’ve been contacting public power groups around the country. They are mostly unwilling to help. The state PUD association was fined [for improper campaign activity] in 2008 and won’t do anything.

Elected officials tell us they support us but won’t publically endorse us. Only a few unions have stepped forward. Thurston Conservation Voters endorsed us because of PSE’s investment in coal. The Thurston-Lewis-Mason Labor Council won’t endorse us because the Initiative is against coal (they have union jobs at the Centralia coal plant). PSE seems to have bought support or bullied public power supporters at every turn.

October 8, 2012

Nuked! Governor Gregoire has publically announced her opposition to Proposition 1 in a press release. It sounds like it was written by PSE’s political consultants – Risk! So saving the State millions of dollars isn’t a good thing? Looks like a political payoff.

Meanwhile PDC filings show PSE has spent almost $300,000 on the campaign so far. Lots of business endorsements for the No vote, but that’s predictable. The Olympian ran five editorials against the Initiative one Sunday, all apparently ghost-written by PSE’s political consultants.

October 18, 2012

Free refrigerators! PSE has been doing a parallel “non-political” campaign in the County, with ads showing happy workers, free light bulbs, and now a free fridge for seniors – and only in Thurston County!

Meanwhile a deluge of mailers have been coming in. Slick, glossy cards comparing Thurston PUD to a birthday candle, scaring readers about winter storm damage, and including some flat-out lies.

In fact the Voters Pamphlet included some lies, but there’s no law against lying in a Voters Pamphlet or political mailer.

November 6, 2012

We gather at the Eagles waiting for results. PDC reports now shows over $600,000 spent on the No vote, almost 95% from PSE and not a dime from a human being. The Initiative has raised a little over $37,000 – outspent 16 to 1.

The results finally are posted: public power is failing 60-40. Initiative members are disappointed, but resolute. Many vow that this is just the first step, and they will try again.

November 18, 2012

The Initiative has held their annual meeting and elected new officers. They are continuing their work.

PSE and their corporate friends paid $9 per No vote in the election, possibly the largest per capita expenditure for any county election in history. And there’s no law against that either.

Is there a lesson? It’s very difficult for grassroots activism to overcome corporate spending in our current political system. Corporate money influences elected officials, the mainstream media, civil society, and in the end can effectively sow confusion that overwhelms facts. It’s the dark cloud over our democracy that flooded Thurston County this year. ◙