TEMPE — Three candidates for Arizona Corporation Commission vowed Wednesday to force utilities to disclose the money they spend trying to elect the people who regulate them and the rates they can charge.
Democratic challengers Bill Mundell and Tom Chabin added their support to the proposal that incumbent Republican Bob Burns has been pushing for months. Burns has been thwarted by opposition from the four other seated members of the commission.
“There’s a cloud over the commission,” said Burns, running for a second four-year term, at a debate of candidates Wednesday.
Chabin, a former state legislator, said adopting a rule to force such disclosure should not be necessary. He said every utility in the state has agreed to stay out of the race — every utility except Arizona Public Service.
“One utility (has) invested millions of dollars from ratepayer funds to corrupt — or at least create the appearance of corruption,” Chabin said. The result, he said, has been the FBI asking questions and seeking documents from APS and the commission and interviewing former commission Chairman Gary Pierce.
The FBI, for its part, has confirmed only that it is looking into issues related to the 2014 election, though not necessarily related to the commission race.
The four other Republicans running for the three commission seats open in this year’s election were less interested in any sort of disclosure.
Rick Gray, a current state representative, said it’s one thing for the commission to ensure that dollars collected from ratepayers are not used for political or charitable purposes.
“But I think that you begin to cross a line when you say, ‘We want to check to see what you do with your profits,’” he said. Anyway, Gray said, the commission regulates only APS, with no oversight over Pinnacle West Capital Corp., its parent company.
Former state Sen. Al Melvin said how utilities spend their money is none of the public’s business. “They have a right to defend their position,” Melvin said.
The other two Republicans at the forum, incumbent Andy Tobin and former Chandler Mayor Boyd Dunn, took a neutral approach to the question. Dunn acknowledged the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed states to compel disclosure of corporate spending but noted that Arizona lawmakers just this past session moved in the opposite direction, voting to ease rules on “dark money” anonymous donations.
If Burns keeps his seat and voters elect Mundell and Chabin, that would provide the majority necessary to force the issue. How far the commission would get, however, remains to be seen, and could result in a lawsuit.
The hot-button issue comes from campaign finance records which show that Save Our Future Now and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club spent more than $3 million on the 2014 campaign in independent expenditures, first to help Republicans Tom Forese and Doug Little win the Republican nominations for the Corporation Commission over a pair of solar advocates, and then to ensure they defeated the Democrats in the general election.
Both groups have refused to reveal their donors, saying they are organized under federal tax laws as “social welfare” organizations exempt from state financial disclosure laws.
John Hatfield, APS’ vice president of communications, who was at Wednesday’s debate, would not comment on what the candidates said and their contention that his company should disclose its political spending.
“Today is their forum to debate the issues for their campaigns,” he said. “This is not our day to weigh in on that.”
APS and its parent are legally precluded from giving directly to political candidates.
But an APS spokesman has repeatedly refused to confirm or deny that it funneled money into either of the two outside groups that influenced the race.
The Arizona Investment Council, a group of utility investors that co-sponsored Wednesday’s event, has retained a lawyer to argue that the political spending of APS and Pinnacle West is none of the commission’s business.
While Forese and Little may have benefited from the independent expenditures, there has been no allegation that they know who contributed to either group.
