LAURIE ROBERTS

Arizona Corporation Commission should take a lesson from Deflategate

Laurie Roberts
opinion columnist
Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump

What do the NFL and the Arizona Corporation Commission have in common?

Absolutely nothing, sadly.

The National Football League today upheld New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension in Deflategate. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said new information that Brady's cell phone has been destroyed showed that he "sought to hide evidence of his own participation in the underlying scheme to alter the footballs."

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reported this week that he'd heard from a source that Brady destroyed his phone to eliminate evidence of text messages with the Patriots staffers who handle the footballs.

The destruction of the cell phone was disclosed in mid-June, fully four months after investigators had requested it.

Hmmmmm. Does this sound like anybody you know, Arizona?

For months now, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump's curious texting tendencies have been called into question. Inquiring minds want to know why this utility regulator was playing so much digital footsie with an Arizona Public Service executive during last year's campaign season.

And with a dark-money group believed to have been funded by APS.

And with two commission candidates supported by that dark-money group, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Candidates who now sit on the Corporation Commission that regulates APS.

Sadly, commission attorney David Cantelme is not one of those inquiring minds. Cantelme has said that the public can't see Stump's text messages because they likely wouldn't be public record. And besides, Stump threw away his commission-issued cell phone last October.

"By then, his iphone3 had deteriorated and had become damaged and disabled, and he disposed of it as unusable and began using the (also commission-issued) iphone5," Cantelme wrote in June, to the Checks and Balances Project, which wants to see those text messages.

A skeptic might ponder why Stump would simply toss away a state-supplied phone rather than turning it in. Might question whether Stump was embracing his inner Tom Brady and hiding evidence.

Alas, it seems we have no skeptics in Arizona. At least, none in power who could make a stink over what clearly is beginning to be gas-mask worthy.

Hey, do you think we could draft Roger Goodell to run for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission?