What it does:

Aims to limit competition among electricity utilities by barring local competitors from signing up new customers, in an attempt to undo the deregulation of power in California.

Why we oppose it:

The measure is too complicated to work and is likely to be struck down anyway, since it appears to be unconstitutional.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office can’t even make sense of Proposition 80 —- so how can voters stand a chance with it?

Put forth by the Utility Reform Network, Proposition 80 was created with California’s deregulation disaster fresh in mind, but tries to address the problem in the wrong manner — by stifling competition and giving utility companies a handout.

While the measure should be praised for its calls for conservation, energy efficiency and renewable sources of power, its main flaw is that it locks in many steps that the California Energy Commission has already taken in response to the state’s deregulation crisis.

If those steps are locked in, changes could only come about with a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature, and as the Los Angeles Times points out, “there is no good reason for making energy policy so hard to change.”

There’s a reason voters aren’t normally charged with formulating energy policy. The complexity and uncertainty in Proposition 80 makes that reason clear.