Playing political ‘chicken’

Friday, March 31, 2006

In politics, as in life, self-preservation is the strongest instinct. And in politics self-preservation means re-election.

That’s why, when faced with common extinction, statehouse lawmakers circle the wagons to collectively save themselves. Temporarily they drop their partisan, racial and regional differences and all become incumbents. Then, once the storm passes, they go back to infighting.

That’s what happened with the 1986 savings and loan crisis and the 1978 property tax rebellion. The incumbents knew that, instead of blaming each other, they’d better work together or they’d all be unseated.

So why are today’s statehouse lawmakers blaming each other instead of banding together to solve the energy rate hike crisis? Do they really believe that incensed voters, clutching their nearly doubled energy bills, will care who voted for deregulation seven years ago or why competition failed to materialize?

Believe me, the statehouse norm that ‘‘you kill my dog, I kill your cat” applies to the voters as well. ‘‘You double my electric bill, I vote you out of office.” Unless the incumbents do something quickly, almost 2 million ratepayers will receive new, astronomical energy bills right before the elections.

But instead of working together the incumbents are playing a risky game of political ‘‘chicken” with one eye on the clock and the other on the precipice.

The Democrats won’t accept any solution that lets Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich look good. They’ll risk anything, even their own re-elections, to deny Ehrlich a major political victory this close to Election Day. Conversely, Ehrlich knows that any solution he negotiates with the power companies now — no matter how beneficial to the ratepayers — will be labeled ‘‘inadequate” by the Democrats and the partisan media.

So Ehrlich is biding his time while the Democrats rush a host of emergency measures through the legislature. One makes Constellation Energy cough up $528 million in past charges. Another holds hostage Constellation’s $11 billion merger with a Florida utility company until Constellation solves the rate hike, and another switches control of the Public Service Commission from the governor to the legislature.

It bothers the Democrats little that these bills are unwise, illegal, ineffective and threaten to drive the utilities into bankruptcy (remember these are the same people who gave us the Wal-Mart Bill). Their plan is to make Ehrlich veto the bills, then override his vetoes and hope the terrified utilities cave in to the legislature’s wholesale recklessness. Then the Democrats can declare ‘‘victory” and label Ehrlich a utility lapdog. In Annapolis this passes for statesmanship.

Meanwhile, just in case their strategy backfires, the Democrats (and the Baltimore Sun) are busy rewriting history. If the voters ever find out who caused the rate hike crisis, the Democrats will be in deep trouble. After all, the 1999 bill that deregulated Maryland’s energy industry was enacted by a Democratic legislature and governor. The principal architect was Senate President Mike Miller whose political PAC subsequently received $119,000 from the energy companies.

Mayor Martin O’Malley’s running mate, Anthony Brown, voted for the bill and O’Malley’s brother-in-law, Max Curran, sat on the Public Service Commission that blessed it. No wonder the Democrats don’t want to discuss how we got into this mess.

Instead, they’ve generated one of the greatest smoke screens in Maryland political history — they’re blaming the current Public Service Commission, appointed by Ehrlich, for the crisis.

The state Democratic Party is running radio ads blaming the rate hikes on ‘‘Bob Ehrlich’s Public Service Commission.” Leading Democrats are calling for the chairman’s ouster and Sen. Paula Hollinger (a Democrat who voted for deregulation) told the media, ‘‘If we had a Public Service Commission that wasn’t industry-driven, that was fair, that could look at the facts, we wouldn’t have the 72 percent (rate hikes).”

The Democrats’ disinformation is echoed daily by the Baltimore Sun whose anti-Ehrlich hatred has eclipsed any shred of journalistic professionalism. Everyone knows the Sun plays politics but this is disgusting. Heck, even the Sun’s ombudsman expresses concern.

Blaming the rate hike on the Public Service Commission is like blaming the Lincoln assassination on Mrs. Lincoln. She was there, why didn’t she do something? And we all know she had family members who were Confederate sympathizers!

Look, the 1999 deregulation law stripped the Public Service Commission of its rate-setting authority. Its only role was to determine the future ‘‘market rates” when the rate caps ended and that determination was made in 2003 by a Public Service Commission made up entirely of Parris Glendening’s appointees. Furthermore, the current commission met with lawmakers 22 times over the past two years updating them on the coming rate hikes. Blaming the commission is pure political scapegoating.

In olden days a red herring was used to distract hunting dogs from the trail. Blaming the Public Service Commission for deregulation is not only a red herring, it’s a public lie, which, if it doesn’t bother the Democrats and the Sun, ought to bother the voters regardless of who wins at ‘‘chicken” in Annapolis.

Blair Lee is CEO of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and a regular commentator for WBAL radio. His column appears Fridays in The Gazette. His e-mail address is blair@leedg.com.