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In case you didn't see the front-page article written by our reporter Louis Hau on Saturday about the Florida Public Service Commission, I wish you would dig up the paper and read it now.
It turns out that Verizon Communications wrote, word for word, the position of PSC member Rudy Bradley during a 2002 case in which Bradley was arguing hard on the company's side of a dispute.
After Bradley had finished regurgitating Verizon's words, Verizon then turned around and "quoted" Bradley's supposed display of wisdom in a subsequent court appeal.
What a sweet arrangement! The utilities write down whatever they want, and it comes out of the PSC's mouth. Then the phone company can quote the "experts" of the PSC.
Bradley, naturally, says he knows nothing of how this came about. His staff gave him the material. After all, he harrumphs, he must be Properly Informed about the issues.
At this point, I ask you to remember something quite specifically.
Although we are talking about a different case, remember that the PSC also was in charge of deciding whether you should have to pay higher rates to your local phone company, such as Verizon or Bell South.
"Don't worry!" the Legislature told the people of Florida, when it rammed through the law for higher phone rates in 2003. "The final decision will be up to the PSC! And the PSC is fair and impartial!"
"Don't worry!" Gov. Jeb Bush added, when he signed the law to jack up phone rates. "Consumers are protected, because the final decision will be up to the PSC!"
The PSC was supposed to be professional. The PSC was supposed to make its decision based upon the facts. The PSC even went through the sham of holding public hearings throughout the state.
Then, of course, it voted 5-0 to jack up phone rates.
How many comments made by PSC commissioners during that process were written by Verizon, too?
How many other little "briefing papers" have been slipped over the transom?
We know that this latest episode is not an isolated case.
Last year, Bradley and Commissioner Charles M. Davidson privately received briefing papers from Progress Energy Florida during a fight over the size of a rate refund.
Bradley and Davidson then pressed the PSC's staff into backing off its draft recommendation that Progress be forced to refund the full amount in dispute, $23-million.
The people involved in all sides of this nonsense say the same thing about it. They sound rather like a row of parrots in a pet shop:
Not illegal! Not illegal! Not illegal!
But if it isn't illegal, you know why?
Because the Legislature writes the law. The Legislature decides what is illegal, and what isn't. That is the same Legislature that takes millions in campaign money from phone companies, and votes to raise rates.
Here is what the law says, as ridiculous as it is. You can't deal directly with a PSC commissioner, because, you know, they are supposed to be fair, almost like judges.
But you can certainly slip the stuff to their aide. And then it ends up word for word in the PSC's work.
Listen:
This is ridiculous.
This has gotten to the point of corn-pone, Hee-Haw, robber-baron ridiculous.
This is Marie Antoinette ridiculous. This is Al-Capone-with-judges-in-his-pocket ridiculous.
At the very minimum, the state Senate should pass the pending law that freezes the higher phone rates. But then Attorney General Charlie Crist and the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor should jump all over this. A statewide grand jury ought to investigate, and it should recommend procedures for restoring some ethics to this process.
A student of the history of the Florida Public Service Commission during the past 25 years, since it switched from an elected to an appointed body, quickly sees a clear pattern.
Nobody pays attention to the PSC until things get out of hand, and there is a rising tide of individual scandals and revelations. This is followed by a wave of reform, and then the cycle starts over.
Well, it looks like the tide is coming in.