The Phoenix Sun

Solar panels on ASU parking garage, Tempe, AZ

Regular readers of The Phoenix Sun know how important the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has been to the growth of clean and renewable energy in this sun-drenched state. For example, under the leadership of outgoing chairwoman Kris Mayes (who is term-limited out this year), the ACC created one of the toughest Renewable Energy Standards (RES) in the country, calling on utilities to generate 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Despite negative stories about Arizona in the national news lately, the one area in which we continue to shine (pun intended) is in solar power. The nation looks to Arizona to see where the solar energy industry is heading and so far what these see is good — in large part thanks to the ACC.

Which makes today’s story in the New York Times about dirty politics in the race for seats on the ACC doubly worrisome.

“Republican Runs Street People on Green Ticket” reads the headline. And the first of the alleged ringer-candidates is running for the ACC. His name is Ben Pearcy, a 20-year-old street musician who, according to the Times, described himself as the illegitimate son of a stripper and who has been homeless and had run-ins with the law on occasion.

My own view is that using the word “illegitimate” to describe someone whose parents weren’t married is itself illegitimate. Same goes for the low blow about his mother’s occupation. And having been homeless. In fact, most of what’s highlighted in Pearcy’s short bio plays into cruel and baseless stereotypes.

Which is exactly why some Democrats are crying foul.

“It’s unbelievable,” former Arizona Democratic state legislator Jackie Thrasher, says in the Times piece. “It’s not right. It’s deceitful.”

The idea is that by getting people who are, for whatever reason, unelectable, to run for office on the Green party ticket, environmentalists will split the Democratic vote — giving Republicans a better chance of winning the position for themselves.

The Republican “recruiter” is former state legislator Steve May. (May didn’t respond to an interview request left on his voicemail.)

Matt Roberts, communications director for the Arizona Republican Party, told the Sun that he hadn’t discussed the issue with May, but that there isn’t anything wrong with what May is doing.

“Who’s to say whether or not a person is qualified to run?” asked Roberts. “We encourage everybody to get involved in the political process.”

The likelihood of peeling off enough votes to throw an election one way or the other is much greater in low-profile races where voters generally don’t know the office people are seeking, let alone the candidates themselves.

Races, that is, like the one for the Arizona Corporation Commission.

Outgoing ACC chairwoman Mayes, a moderate Republican, had wanted to increase the state’s RES before leaving office. But time for such an effort appears to have run out. The new board may have trouble accomplishing that objective, especially if Republican candidate Brenda Burns is elected.

“There are people who want to increase (the RES),” Burns told the Sun in August. “I’m not one of them.”

While the Earth Burns

Score 1 for the Party of ‘No.’

The losers this time, however, aren’t just Democrats or President Obama. By maintaining a united front against a climate bill with teeth — or even a single tooth — the GOP has prevailed over future generations. In one sense, the GOP has achieved a paradoxical victory: they’ve won a party-line, non-partisan battle. Paying the price for the GOP-enforced inaction on climate and energy policy will be Republicans and Democrats, Independents and Tea- Partiers, liberals and conservatives. Natural disasters don’t give a hoot about partisan politics.

Little has changed in the 104 years since Ambrose Bierce penned his definition of the Senate: “A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.“

On second thought, perhaps the last word does need to be updated. To “felonies.”

When Ronald Reagan declared that “government isn’t the solution; government is the problem,” he probably wasn’t thinking about a blown oil well on the seafloor.

He should have been.

The crude oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico is brought to you by the anti-regulatory movement that Reagan championed and George W. Bush rode into the White House. Now, tea-party Republicans are hoping to rack up victories in November so that they can get back to cutting what little regulatory oversight still exists in the U.S. The document below was written as a primer on the effects of anti-regulation focusing on the actions (and inactions) of George W. Bush during eight years in the White House. It should also be read as a cautionary tale. Ronald Reagan was right about one thing: the problem with the Republican party, he said, was that the right hand never knew what the far-right hand was doing. It’s just as true today.

The Bush Anti-Regulatory Legacy -