If APS can buy its own regulators?

The Yellow Sheet Report for October 21 included this little ditty about campaign funding under the misleading headline, IF APS CAN BUY POLITICIANS, BLOOMBERG CAN TOO:

Independent expenditure spending has finally found its way into the Corp Comm race, with CHISPA and a national group backed by Michael Bloomberg spending millions of dollars to support the Democratic slate of Bill Mundell, Anna Tovar and Shea Stanfield. The “Solar Team” now occupy the top three spots for most outside support. Mundell, the former Republican commissioner turned Democrat, leads with nearly $2 million spent on his behalf. Tovar, the Tolleson mayor and former lawmaker, has benefitted from roughly $1.8 million and Stanfield, a political newcomer, has benefitted from $925,000 in outside spending. 

Most of the money is coming from Beyond Carbon Victory Fund, a pro-solar group Bloomberg started to help elect “climate champions” across the country. That group gave Mundell more than $1 million, Tovar $920,000 and Stanfield $110,000. The group also spent against two of the three Republicans running – $37,000 each against Lea Marquez Peterson, the only incumbent on the ballot, and Jim O’Connor, who ran as a write-in during the primary and said he’s not convinced climate change is real. Eric Sloan, the third Republican, did not make it onto the Bloomberg organization’s radar. CHISPA spent roughly $2.4 million split evenly for the Democrats and $300,000 split evenly against the Republicans. Outside groups have spent just $131,000 in favor of the three Republicans, which goes to show what happens when APS [Arizona Public Service] does not participate in spending. In 2016, it funneled dark money to Republicans Bob Burns, Andy Tobin and Boyd Dunn to the tune of $1.5 to $2.5 million each. (emphasis MINE)

Key points the reporters and editors of the Yellow Sheet probably should have made but did NOT, in the interest of objectivity and to obviate the obvious label which they have so eloquently earned, propagandists,

• That unlike APS, neither CHISPA nor Michael Bloomberg are seeking to "purchase" their own regulators.  
• It is NOT illegal for citizens to advocate using their resources for legislative issues which they personally believe in and support. While it obviously would be ideal for there to be no need for anyone's Big Money to advocate for any issue, Arizona is one of 50 member states in the United States of America. And apparently it IS necessary for citizens, at times, to collectively exercise their civic responsibilities for just causes that protect the rights of everyone, not exclusively the oligarchs and plutocrats.
• Both CHISPA and Beyond Carbon Victory Fund openly declare their intentions and purposes of their advocacy. That is, in contrast to APS, which most brazenly, with apparent malice aforethought and in a very clandestine manner, DID spend lavishly (millions of dollars, not necessarily limited to 2016, otherwise known as DARK MONEY) for purposes much different than the subjects of this YS blurb. Both CHISPA and Beyond Carbon shine a bright light on current policy positions, as opposed to APS which spent YEARS denying their sinister efforts to purchase their regulators.

As an aside, nothing in this reporting documents the $131k which supported the GOP Corp Comm candidates as having been from sources that could not possibly have originally been from APS or its parent company, Pinnacle West Capital Corp. Further, termed out Republican commissioner Bob Burns -- despite APS' best efforts -- ultimately became a thorn in the side of our state's largest and most powerful investor-owned utility (IOU). But that's a story for another day.

APS CEO (during the years when the IOU spent millions of dollars to purchase its own regulators) Don Brandt photo courtesy AZMIRROR.com