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California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

propublica.org

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Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#31

Post by ashtonkem »

legulere wrote: post #20
Justin_K wrote: post #18

The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

Because the parties that currently control all legislatures would lose out. In some areas a ballot initiative can eventually implement proportional voting (Maine passed an initiative for ranked choice), but that’s a very high bar to clear.

It seems like the best way to get proportional voting is to create your democratic system with it that way from the beginning.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#32

Post by forgingahead »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #19
hh3k0 wrote: post #8

> In response to detailed questions, commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said that Stebbins’ allegation of $200 million in missing fines and fees was the result of a misunderstanding of the commission’s accounting practices. A misunderstanding of accounting practices?

Like in many accounting controversies, the fundamental problem here is how to account for future expectations. If you’re owed a big sum of money but you know for sure payment is coming soon, your accounting statements should show you as much wealthier than the actual money you have on hand, because receiving a payment you already knew you’d get shouldn’t change how you measure your financial status. The commission sa…

How to account for this isn't controversial -- you put the expected money to be received on your balance sheet, either under "Accounts Receivable", which is listed as an asset, or another similarly related account that shows the money is due. Of course, you can't have "Accounts Receivable" for eons with no update, at some point an auditor will say the money should be collected, or you have to write it off as a bad debt. But you must account for it one way or another.

The article seems to say that this money was not accounted for at all in the documents, and that in general, the accounting is a mess. If you don't know all your financial information, then how do you make financial decisions?

Well it doesn't matter in CA apparently, you just ask the state govt for more, who then either says they are underfunded and need to raise taxes, and/or ask the federal govt for more. The whole thing is a racket - be very very suspicious of any entity that is purposefully opaque by design, and gives you a shrug/"gee-willickers" reply to how this is just the way it is and can't be changed.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#33

Post by forgingahead »

justin66 wrote: post #28
Justin_K wrote: post #18

The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

They might get away with it, but another metaphor is called for. Thanks to propublica they’ve pretty thoroughly failed to sweep it under the rug.

Many scandalous issues are raised by outlets like ProPublica - this is a good thing, but only half of the process. If there are no consequences for the culprits, followed by systemic change to prevent this from occurring again, then this is essentially shouting into the wind.

Parent is making the point that due to the one-party system, the latter outcomes will never happen.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#34

Post by dragonwriter »

legulere wrote: post #20
Justin_K wrote: post #18

The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

> As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US.

Because change in voting systems has well-studied partisan and ideological impacts, and many of the people who know enough to understand the way that our current voting system contributes to widely-recognized problems in governance also have studied the issue well enough to understand those impacts, and many of them, even while accepting the problems as problems, think that the likely shift in ideological outcomes would be more adverse to their preferenced than the current set of problems.

> The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves

They are, but they don't want to. The only major voting system reform that has anywhere close to critical mass is IRV, which should have minimal impact (which is actually why it is within the space of possibility, though obviously not something advocates publicly trumpet.)

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#35

Post by claudeganon »

Justin_K wrote: post #18

The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

I don’t think Republican opposition is the answer, as they’re demonstrably just as corrupt and self-serving. But California could certainly benefit from some primary challenges from the left. LA is seeing this happen with the election of Nithya Raman and George Gascón (who were vehemently opposed by mainstream Democrats). Interested to see how they might shift the terrain.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23
legulere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, w…

> A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places.

Less places than you might think. It especially wouldn't for Congress (so long as it was proportional by a method similar to STV within state delegations, or within some subset of state delegations), as the only barrier there is a statutory prohibition on at-large districts for delegations greater than 1, adopted to head off the use of FPTP at-large districts to systematically deny representation not minorities.

> Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts

Party list proportional would do that, but most other proportional systems would not.

> and thereby constituents having their votes diluted

Proportionality doesn't dilute votes; the more proportional a system is the more efficiently it allocated votes to give them maximum effect.

> and not having a specific representative

Proportional systems don't need to have that effect, either, no matter how you measure it (and FPTP—and any other simple singlr-member district system—definitely has that effect for supporters of the nonwinning party in a district, who are effectively unrepresented entirely.)

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#37

Post by Aeolun »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23
legulere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, w…

> constituents having their votes diluted

Wut? Literally every vote would be worth the same under proportional voting, that’s kind of the point isn’t it?

Of course that means that people whose vote is currently outrageously relevant will have their vote dilluted.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#38

Post by morsch »

grandmczeb wrote: post #24
legulere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

The US actually had quite a few cities with proportional voting in the early-mid 1900s. NYC for example had it from 1936 to 1947 when it was eliminated via referendum[1]. [1] https://www.fairvote.org/new_york_s_proportional_representat...

Proportional, and also ranked, that's awesome. Assigning ranks seems like a much more "high fidelity" way of describing what I want. The article's graph of vote vs representation is striking.

"[R]epeal advocates blamed proportional representation for the election of communists to the city council. While the communist issue might have doomed proportional representation, the true deathblow came when the Republicans joined the Democrats to oppose it. Republicans had been early champions of proportional representation, but defected due to their dwindling role within a diverse and mostly progressive minority coalition."

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#39

Post by TwoBit »

dragonwriter wrote: post #34
legulere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

> As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. Because change in voting systems has well-studied partisan and ideological impacts, and many of the people who know enough to understand the way that our current voting system contributes to widely-recognized problems in governance also have studied the issue well enough to understand those impacts, and many of them, even while a…

That of course is why one of the two US political parties is staunchly against abolishing the electoral college.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#40

Post by tome »

Aeolun wrote: post #37
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, w…

> constituents having their votes diluted Wut? Literally every vote would be worth the same under proportional voting, that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Of course that means that people whose vote is currently outrageously relevant will have their vote dilluted.

"Diluted" means "spread out". AnthonyMouse's point is that voters would no longer vote for a particular representative. Their vote would be "spread out" across the whole party list.

(dragonwriter disagrees https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549671, but I'm not sure what he/she is referring to)

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