The Wheels of Justice grind slowly, but...

Sun Tzu, author of the Art of War, once wrote,

“Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine.”

In 2013, not long after the Arizona Corporation Commission was populated entirely by Republican commissioners, and immediately after then Common Cause executive director Bob Edgar appeared in Phoenix to highlight a report on the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council, I wrote,

By the way, at last night's event, panelists remarked about Arizona being a "subsidiary" of ALEC. The event focused on members of the Arizona Legislature. Perhaps the NEXT edition of the ALEC in Arizona report should explore the way the Arizona Corporation Commission is effectively now a WHOLLY OWNED subsidiary of ALEC.

Of course, in 2014, Stump became substantially more brazen in his self-serving exercise of the power delegated to him by the people of Arizona. Enter Checks and Balances Project in March 2015 functioning as a de facto investigative journalism unit, apparently because corporate media, print and broadcast, in our state have all but abdicated responsibility to the public to do that work.

Now we have Arizona Republic editors, like Phil Boas, explicitly acknowledging that abdication. Okay, maybe not explicitly, but making it abundantly obvious nevertheless.

Then today, three very important items were filed at the Corporation Commission. Each of the three items is quite significant and puts Tommy Little Stump on notice that they are, pretty much, screwed. Caught in their efforts to hide their connection to Arizona Public Service.

First, former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Zlaket filed a 7-page letter responding to the letters Tommy Little Stump filed trying to justify opposition to demands for APS to disclose their election spending. Zlaket spanks the three APS stooges quite smartly. I hope it stings. (This evening I'll post excerpts in an update to this entry).

Second, former Republican Corporation Commissioner Bill Mundell and former Democratic Corporation Commissioner Renz Jennings filed letters with the ACC demanding Little and Forese recuse themselves AND requesting reconsideration of last month's decision that put the ball in motion for APS to charge much higher fees for customers with rooftop solar. I'll see about updating to also include excerpts from those letters.

In the meantime, I have to figure that the only one of the five Corporation Commissioners not currently freaked out and running scared is Bob Burns. I'm still not a huge fan of Mr. Burns, but do appreciate (regardless of his motivation) his calls for APS to open their books, even though he hedges somewhat in that regard. Burns is, after all a legacy member of ALEC.

Today it is a case of the grasshopper pitted against the elephant. But tomorrow the elephant will have its guts ripped out. Le Loi, Vietnamese emperor, 15th Century.