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Verizon's apparent influence over PSC commissioner Rudy Bradley is not all that surprising, but it is putting the Public Service Commission's credibility at risk.
Two years ago when Gov. Bush appointed Rudy Bradley to the Florida Public Service Commission, some questioned Bradley's competence for the job. His main qualification: While still a Democrat, Bradley endorsed Bush for governor. Since then, Bradley has shown little command of utility issues, and now there is reason to question his honesty, as well.
During a telephone rate hearing when PSC commissioners are required to consider only the evidence at hand, Bradley made comments that we now know were taken - word for word, essentially - from a three-page memo written by Verizon Communications. It would have been illegal for Bradley to allow the phone company, a party to quasi-judicial proceedings, to lobby him privately.
Bradley says any information he had in the 2002 hearing was provided by his office staff. So Bradley admitted, at the very least, that he reads whatever is handed him, but in this case the similarity between his argument and Verizon's is uncanny. In making a complex point about mergers and acquisitions that favored the phone company's position, for example, he used the memo's precise language. Later, Bradley's words - which were really Verizon's - ended up in a phone company appeal to the state Supreme Court, thus giving the company's own argument the imprimatur of the PSC.
The memo was not made public until recently, when St. Petersburg Times staff writer Louis Hau obtained a copy. Verizon then confirmed its existence.
Verizon says it wrote the memo in response to a request from PSC staffers, but everyone's memory grows fuzzy after that. Bradley's aide at the time said she doesn't remember seeing that particular memo or passing it on to the commissioner. So we know who wrote the script, but not who gave it to Bradley.
Gov. Bush should get to the bottom of this matter because the credibility of the PSC is at stake. If telephone and power companies can put words in commissioners' mouths - either directly or indirectly - during formal hearings, then the public stands no chance in rate cases. PSC rules actually allow staff members to accept one-sided communication from regulated industries, and that leaves utility customers at a disadvantage. The Legislature should rewrite the law so that rate cases are decided only on the evidence of record.
This one recalls a scandal at the Supreme Court 30 years ago in which two justices were accused of using a memorandum secretly supplied by a utility lawyer as the text for a proposed opinion upholding the utility's appeal from the PSC. One of the justices, for whom it was not his first ethical offense, was forced to resign.
As for Bradley's performance, no one should be surprised. He has been an embarrassment since his appointment.
In 2002, one of Bradley's female aides made credible allegations that he sexually harassed her, although Bradley was later cleared because the state's inspector general could find no witnesses to the behavior. In another rate case last year, involving Progress Energy Florida, Bradley and another commissioner were criticized after the utility sent their offices private briefing papers.
It ought to be getting hard for even Gov. Bush to ignore Bradley's betrayal of the public trust.