Are you still following the Enron scandal? Do you obsessively log onto the Washington Post’s web site every morning and check out the latest he-said, she-said “what did they know and when did they know it” gossip from the previous day’s hearings?
Probably not. Few of us do, nor should we have to. We all have more immediate concerns and besides, we know the basic plot lines. A bunch of executives at in the energy industry made huge campaign contributions to politicians and in exchange, the politicians forgot about the people they are supposed to represent and instead let the energy executives run wild and greedy through the corporate suites, the result being bankruptcy for Enron and economic ruin for thousands of innocent people.
Enron is a big scandal; you know it’s a big scandal because campaign finance reform, which had been stuck in Congress for 15 years suddenly went sailing through. So, if nothing else good comes from the misery of the Enron employees and shareholders, at least we’re cleaning up our political system and we’ve learned to avoid these kind of scandals before calamity strikes.
Or have we? Here in Vermont, our governor, Howard Dean has announced his intention to run for president. Like all serious candidates, he’s established a political action committee. Dr. Dean, a physician by trade, calls his PAC “Fund for a Healthy America.” According to a recent filing with the Federal Elections Commission, Dr. Gov. Dean’s PAC has just over $100,000 in it and nearly 20 percent of those contributions have come from – that’s right, you guessed it – energy executives.
No, the energy executives are not Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, but the Enron pattern might just be there. One donor who contributed the maximum amount – $5,000 – to Gov. Dean’s PAC is the chief executive of Central Vermont Public Service and chairman of Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, the state’s only nuke.
Well, so what? If a guy’s going to run for president, he needs to raise money, and he’s got to get it from somewhere and just because Lay and Skilling are corrupt, does it mean every energy executive in the country should be painted with the same brush?
No, it doesn’t, but if you live in Vermont, you know the state of our energy situation falls somewhere between poor and pathetic. Vermonters pay the fifth highest utility rates in the country. Through a series of maneuvers that have never been fully explained, state regulators locked many Vermont consumers into a ruinous long-term contract with Hydro Quebec. In disputes between ratepayers – that is to say, citizens – and utilities, Gov. Dean consistently sided with the energy companies. And now their executives are financing his presidential ambitions.
But what about campaign finance? Vermont has one of the most progressive campaign finance laws in the country. If a candidate agrees to spending limits, he or she can qualify for public funding.
Except. Except that Gov. Dean – the man with the contributions from the utilities – wants to steal money from publicly funded campaigns and use it to fill budget shortfalls brought about by the recession. This from a man who thinks he’s ready to run the country.
The question is: Have we learned anything from the Enron scandal?
The answer is: Apparently not.
Enron Without End
Are you still following the Enron scandal? Do you obsessively log onto the Washington Post’s web site every morning and check out the latest he-said, she-said “what did they know and when did they know it” gossip from the previous day’s hearings?
Probably not. Few of us do, nor should we have to. We all have more immediate concerns and besides, we know the basic plot lines. A bunch of executives at in the energy industry made huge campaign contributions to politicians and in exchange, the politicians forgot about the people they are supposed to represent and instead let the energy executives run wild and greedy through the corporate suites, the result being bankruptcy for Enron and economic ruin for thousands of innocent people.
Enron is a big scandal; you know it’s a big scandal because campaign finance reform, which had been stuck in Congress for 15 years suddenly went sailing through. So, if nothing else good comes from the misery of the Enron employees and shareholders, at least we’re cleaning up our political system and we’ve learned to avoid these kind of scandals before calamity strikes.
Or have we? Here in Vermont, our governor, Howard Dean has announced his intention to run for president. Like all serious candidates, he’s established a political action committee. Dr. Dean, a physician by trade, calls his PAC “Fund for a Healthy America.” According to a recent filing with the Federal Elections Commission, Dr. Gov. Dean’s PAC has just over $100,000 in it and nearly 20 percent of those contributions have come from – that’s right, you guessed it – energy executives.
No, the energy executives are not Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, but the Enron pattern might just be there. One donor who contributed the maximum amount – $5,000 – to Gov. Dean’s PAC is the chief executive of Central Vermont Public Service and chairman of Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, the state’s only nuke.
Well, so what? If a guy’s going to run for president, he needs to raise money, and he’s got to get it from somewhere and just because Lay and Skilling are corrupt, does it mean every energy executive in the country should be painted with the same brush?
No, it doesn’t, but if you live in Vermont, you know the state of our energy situation falls somewhere between poor and pathetic. Vermonters pay the fifth highest utility rates in the country. Through a series of maneuvers that have never been fully explained, state regulators locked many Vermont consumers into a ruinous long-term contract with Hydro Quebec. In disputes between ratepayers – that is to say, citizens – and utilities, Gov. Dean consistently sided with the energy companies. And now their executives are financing his presidential ambitions.
But what about campaign finance? Vermont has one of the most progressive campaign finance laws in the country. If a candidate agrees to spending limits, he or she can qualify for public funding.
Except. Except that Gov. Dean – the man with the contributions from the utilities – wants to steal money from publicly funded campaigns and use it to fill budget shortfalls brought about by the recession. This from a man who thinks he’s ready to run the country.
The question is: Have we learned anything from the Enron scandal?
The answer is: Apparently not.