California billionaire Tom Steyer’s personal mission to impose energy mandates on Arizona continues to implode. Arizonans are overwhelmingly rejecting his pet project: 34 YES to 47 NO, according to recent polling.
In coming to terms with his doomed Prop 127 campaign, Steyer has now weaponized his independent expenditure group with the goal of bringing down Arizona politicians with it.
The Arizona Republic reports that “Steyer’s group has spent more than $3 million to attack [Attorney General Mark] Brnovich. It also has spent about $55,000 each on opposition advertising against state Senate Republican hopefuls J.D. Mesnard, Kate Brophy McGee and Sylvia Allen.” Steyer is also injecting cash into the campaigns of his hand-picked Democrats for the Arizona Corporation Commission.
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While Steyer’s attacks on Arizona conservatives seem rather non-discriminate, he has reserved the brunt of his frenzy for Brnovich. Steyer has decided to bludgeon this state official for… properly informing the voters. That’s right.
Activist groups have a history of producing misleading ballot initiatives in Arizona in order to increase their odds of success. Look no further than the “Invest in Ed” initiative for a recent example. Similar issues existed with the wording of Prop 127, so Brnovich fulfilled his duty as attorney general by correcting it.
What has truly triggered Tom Steyer and his liberal pack was Brnovich’s sound decision to add the words “irrespective of cost to consumers” to the proposition language. That was wholly appropriate given that in normal circumstances, the Corporation Commission makes this type of energy policy overhaul with full sensitivity to rate levels – because that is their job.
Prop 127, on the other hand, would impose a constitutional mandate that requires energy providers to meet artificial stipulations no matter the cost. With such a radical departure from how energy levels and rates are supposed to be set in Arizona, it would have been malpractice for Attorney General Brnovich not to provide the honest, additional context for voters.
Voters should be as informed as possible. Unfortunately for Tom Steyer, increased knowledge about Prop 127 lends poorly to its prospects. Steyer calls it language manipulation. Really it’s just informing the voters of the facts.
Steyer has taken to Twitter in recent days to whine and moan about the collapsing Prop 127. It seems he didn’t realize how big of a pain the democratic process would be to his radical agenda.
Steyer continues to spend more than 100 million dollars on his delusional political goals, like impeaching President Trump. That campaign will fail. His best efforts to impose Prop 127 on Arizona will also fail. Now he’s launching character assassinations on Arizona public servants. Those, too, will likely fail.
Given his track record, one can only hope Steyer decides to run for president in 2020. Then he can fall short one more time before retiring to obscurity.
More on Steyer here.
