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Columns

Charlie was more fun in the old days

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 20, 2007

I don't want their money. This is a company who was trying to take me out in a political sense.

Charlie Crist, on Florida Power & Light Co., 2006

They've shown me a great corporate ethic ... They've not been naughty, they've been nice.

Charlie Crist, on Florida Power & Light Co., 2007

Iliked it better back when the governor and the electric companies were mad at each other.

Oh, but those were great days!

As our attorney general, he would intervene left and right in cases before the state Public Service Commission.

Back in 2005, Crist sneered at FP&L's "gall" in asking for more money. "Frankly," he said, "they don't deserve it."

Crist declared his intention to make the Public Service Commission an elected body.

"It's not the Utility Company Service Commission," he liked to say during his campaign for governor.

FP&L backed Crist's opponent, Tom Gallagher, in the Republican primary in 2006. After Crist won, supposedly, he rejected the company's offer of a big fat donation to make peace.

And when Crist got elected governor, who did he appoint to the PSC?

He chose Nancy Argenziano, a tough-edged state senator who had fought her own party bosses for better utility regulation.

Nancy Argenziano!

But, as they say, that was then.

***

This September, our star governor got to hang out with Brad Pitt and Bill Clinton -at the Clinton Global Initiative, no less - where FP&L announced plans for a solar thermal power plant.

Turns out that FP&L had just been throwing the wrong kind of "green" at the governor. Give the man a little eco-talk and it's like catnip.

Now FP&L has donated $250,000 to the governor's campaign in favor of the property-tax cut that's on the Jan. 29 statewide ballot.

Crist has been raising private money for the campaign. You might remember that he even went up to New York and hung out at a fancy dinner with Donald Trump and friends.

"Umm hmmm," they probably nodded, in between bites of foie gras, looking over Crist's shoulder out the window. "Interesting."

Anyway, this business of FP&L giving money for the governor's causes is a bad thing.

There's really no circumstance in which the governor ought to be hitting up the state's biggest electric company for private contributions for his pet causes.

It doesn't matter if it's for buying clothes for the naked, homes for the homeless or puppies for the lonely - let alone for whatever political effort the governor is supporting at the moment.

FP&L is a company regulated by the state. The governor personally chooses the people who will do the regulating. He also decides whether to sign utility-related bills passed by the Legislature, such as the one that lets electric companies bill us in advance for new power plants.

So let's go back to the old days, when Crist accused the electric company of "gall" and looked for a fight, and when the electric company held him in a mix of fear and contempt and wanted him gone.

For starters, he could give the money back ...

[Last modified December 19, 2007, 23:56:54]