The measure, called Question 3, prompted heated debate in the months leading up to the election. Central Maine Power and Versant Power, the state’s dominant utilities, poured more than $40 million into a campaign opposing the referendum, outspending Pine Tree Power advocates 34 to 1. Political groups funded by the utilities and their parent companies mailed flyers and aired ads on TV, radio, and social media, urging Mainers to reject the measure, which would have effectively put the two companies out of business.
Similar attempts have been made in my State to oust the private company in control of of energy, that does nothing but raise rates and lobby against anyone installing solar panels. There’s been some radio silence after the last round of attempts.
Duke energy sucks
Reminds me of when patient ratios for nurses in I believe Vermont went to a ballot measure and after a massive ad campaign it barely failed. Not like the public really understands what it’s like and what’s cut when you’re understaffed and the slick ads tell them that it’ll make things worse so they believe it. Then you get national professional organizations celebrating the defeat because they’re all ghouls and don’t give a shit about the floor nurse burning out after running with an 8:1 in med surg or 24:1 at rehab where you have 20 minutes to allot each person, good luck actually giving people proper care.
there was a bill in California last year that would have required dialysis clinics to have a doctor/nurse/PA present during patient treatments, and they would have to get permission from the state’s department of health before they could close clinics or reduce patient services, among other things like having to provide the state with a list of people who had more than 5% ownership interest in the clinic. Of course private health companies like DaVita spent more than $75 million buying ads that were just thinly-veiled threats like “hey you love your family members with kidney disease, right? It would be a shame if we just closed all these clinics…” and so of course the bill failed with almost 70% of people voting no.
idk how anyone can consider this country a democracy
When was the last time that anything remotely like this happened in clapistan?
We’re gonna try something similar in my county, sucks to see these referendums get crushed.
Bourgeois “democracy” at work. I hate corporations doing this shit.
All the old people were inundated with ads on their favorite radio and TV programs. Outspent 40-1 with our own money.
Democratic governor was against it.
We never had a chance.
Outspent 40-1 with our own money
I sure am glad we don’t have unions. Wouldn’t want my money going to anything political
30/70
Oof.
Maybe next time there shouldn’t be a vote
funny how it takes a plebiscite the company is allowed to campaign in to create a public utility, but selling off a public utility never comes with a plebiscite?
tbf they did call a plebiscite for a similar thing to sell off the water utility in somerville nj, unfortunately our local DSA chapter didn’t notice it in time and started campaigning against it waaaaayyyy too late so it passed.
our local DSA chapter didn’t notice
lmao damn
“We gave you a choice between a good thing and a bad thing. We may have sunk a lot of resources into the bad thing, but the beautiful part about it is that we gave you a choice unlike those authoritarian countries.”
Fucking love democracy man
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who are trying to raise rates another 20% while we’re already paying the highest prices in the country
there’s a bunch of california local public owned for electricity https://www.cmua.org/members
i’m pretty familiar with EBMUD and SMUD. Way cheaper electricity, cleaner, local better jobs compared to the poor neighboring souls still stuck on PG&E for electricity.
i remember SMUD tried to expand into yolo county back in like 2009? and it was copy/paste same from this article with PG&E spending the world to stop it, successfully. those idiot voters got their wish (or more charitably: got manufactured) and have been getting fleeced hard since.
Burns down the state from not doing maintenance on power lines. Raises rates.
poured more than $40 million into a campaign opposing the referendum, outspending Pine Tree Power advocates 34 to 1.
boy that sure sounds democratic and not just bourgeois power
business as usual in
the bastion of freedom™ and democracyright? How is that even democracy?
Why is there even a fucking choice in the first place
“We are introducing a referendum opposing an act that would be in the best interests of the populace”
What happens when you fetishize absolute freedom I guess
The choice is so that centrists who recognize the obviously broken system for what it is will come up with a million excuses for why the system is good anyway.
And that’s while living literally one step away from one of the best state own power utility in the OECD, providing the cheapest electricity of the “western” world. Americans are a lost cause. 🤦
Which is that?
Hydro Québec. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t perfect. But they are way ahead of basically everyone else. 0.065CAD/kWh, while still bringing in billions in revenue to the state every year.
Part of the reason it’s so cheap is because they sell a lot of power to the US NW, in addition to contracts providing reserve power through reverse-pumping the dams.
It’s part of it, but it was this cheap even before those deals were made. Of course geography has a lot to do with it too!
Regions who have a good source of hydro power usually the most flexibility to change up systems relating to electricity.
Its why for example Norway is capable to flip to EVs so quickly (in 2022, 80%+ vehicles sold were EVs). 95% of Norway’s electricity is hydro power.
But they are way ahead of basically everyone else. 0.065CAD/kWh
Lol I have to pay 0.37€ per kWh, literally two orders of magnitude higher.
Thank god all them hippies got those nuclear plants shut down, am I right?!
I think your math is wrong. .37 / .065 is 5~. A pound is worth around 1.7 cad. So you’re paying around 9x the price with currency conversion, or a bit less then an order of magnitude. Two orders of magnitude would be 100 times the price.
Why is something like this a referendum, just fucking implement it.
They tried to work through the legislature. Governor vetoed it. So they did a citizens initiative.
Ah, fair enough then. Could the governor veto a referendum as well?
On one hand I have an impulse to call the voters morons but it can’t be right, this level of propaganda is ungodly. What exactly does a power company’s propaganda even look like?
voters morons but it can’t be right
This is the imperial core, you don’t have to make apologies for bourgeois proletariats.
They put a large man in a hard hat and a flannel on TV and in a heavy Central Maine accent he said “Government run power is too expensive for us taxpayers”
The voters also killed a constitutional amendment to remove a provision that was ruled illegal in federal court 20 years ago and hasn’t been enforced since.
Edit: They actually voted against two constitutional amendments to bring our laws in line with federal law
One of their arguments I believe was that it would actually be more expensive under public, because the cost of the buyout would be passed on to customers’ bills. That probably resonated even though the cost of the buyout was overinflated by them.
cost of the buyout
if that was such a concern they should’ve just allotted 1 dollar to the buyout
