Re: Once again... Oregon voters said NO... but the state said yes.
The real reason California went broke is their incomprehensible deregulation of the energy industry (passed under Wilson(R)). The terms of this deregulation allowed folks like Enron to manipulate the energy market to the detriment of California rate payers.<br /><br />So rate payers struck back with yet another initiative to put a cap on retail energy rates. The local Edison Cos said whoa, we can't pay the new rates and have a cap on what we can charge, so we will buy only what we can afford---which of course led to undersupply, and blackouts.<br /><br />Enter Gov Davis, who realized the state needed the power, regardless of what it cost, and entered into long term Enron inflated contracts. Voila, California owns a whole bunch of power at a ridiculous cost, that by initiative, can't pass the increases on to the ratepayers.<br /><br />Now you can say what you want about state legislatures, and how they fund things you don't like, and all that may be true, but the worst possible way to fix this is with the initiative process, that attempts to fix a symptom of the problem without addressing the underlying problem.<br /><br />it simply leads to chaos.
