Arizona GOP runs interference for Bob Stump ... and APS?
Clearly, Arizona Public Service must be worried.
Which means that the Arizona Corporation Commission must be worried.
Which means that the Arizona Republican Party is up nights … really, really worried.
Thus comes the state GOP’s campaign to discredit those who are nosing around trying to figure out just how cozy Arizona’s utility regulators are with Aizona’s largest utility.
This week, the party put out a web ad, dubbing the Washington D.C.-based pro-clean energy Checks and Balances Project “a leftist group pushing their radical agenda.”
And a YouTube video about the group's lawyer, entitled "Who is Dan Barr?" (scroll down to view it)
Turns out he's a pal of Osama Bin Laden, loves criminals and Democrats and hates the police.
Who knew?
Still awaiting the Republican Party’s attack ads on the Attorney General’s Office, which this week expanded its investigation into connections between the Corporation Commission and APS.
For those who don't know Barr, he is a longtime Phoenix attorney with one of the city's big law firms, a First Amendment expert who often represents TV stations and such in their efforts to uncover the stuff that government officials would rather you didn't see.
He's also the attorney representing the Checks and Balances Project, which for months has been trying to get a look at Commissioner Bob 'the Mad Texter" Stump's text messages.
The ones he sent during last year's campaign season to an APS executive. And to the head of a dark money group believed to have been secretly funded by APS. And to the two APS-supported commission candidates for whom the dark money group campaigned. And to the candidates' campaign manager.
Inquiring minds would like to know just how cozy this state regulator is with the utility that he regulates – the ones whose profits he helps set. One of five who determine the size of your APS bill.
Inquiring minds would also like to know why none of the five on the all-Republican commission – Stump, Bob Burns, Susan Bitter Smith, Tom Forese, Doug Little – will order APS to open its books so that we can see if it secretly spent more than $3 million to land Forese and Little seats on the commission. But I digress.
Checks and Balances, with Barr's assistance, is putting the screws to the commission to release those texts, to determine whether Stump was helping to coordinate an APS campaign for Forese and Little. The commission has said it can't hand the texts over because Stump deleted them. And besides, he then threw out his state-issued phone because it quit working. And besides, even if the texts could be retrieved, they wouldn't be public record.
This, according to commission attorney David Cantelme, who presumably has never seen the texts. Because they're gone.
Or are they?
After months of dragging its feet, the commission has finally consented to try to find someone who can retrieve the messages from Stump's new phone but alas, the Attorney General's Office seized the phone before that could happen. This, for its own investigation into whether former Commissioner Gary Pierce was a bit too cozy with APS while he was chairman of the Corporation Commission. (Pay not attention to the fact that APS spent $425,000 last year to help Attorney General Mark Brnovich elected. It isn't relevant, we are told.)
.So now we wait.
And some of us worry. Clearly.
Cue the Republican Party's video, complete with the inevitable spooky music:
"What kind of person is Dan Barr. His law firm represents Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard. He defended prisoners while opposing Arizona police officers. Barr's so out of touch he even wanted Sen. McCain to apologize to Susan Rice over Benghazi, all while giving thousands of dollars to Democrats. Now Barr's attacking Bob Stump. The Republic said the attack borders on being a bully. Dan Barr, a partisan liberal pretending to be a watchdog."
Or put another way, a bulldog attorney trying to obtain pubic records to see if the Arizona Corporation Commission is covered in APS pocket lint.
Oh yeah, clearly somebody's worried.