Can PG&E Make Carmen Chu into a Star? You Bet, Kiddo!
"Here's a little number I call 'To Hell with Prop. H.' One, Two, Three, FOUR!"
Anti-Proposition H ads festooned with pictures of District 4 Supe -- even as she runs for re-election -- don't bend city rules. But, still...
By Joe Eskenazi
San Francisco voters who received a PG&E-financed “No on Prop. H” mailer plastered with multiple pictures of Supervisor Carmen Chu could be forgiven for all experiencing the same thought: “Couldn’t Carmen have provided them with a photograph more recent than High School?”
Those who show up at government meetings toting manila folders ostensibly full of pertinent documents probably conjured up another question: “Is it legal for a massive utility corporation to use a supervisor up for re-election as its mailer-and-TV-commercial poster girl and essentially provide her with shitloads of free advertising?”
The answer to both of these queries is “Yes.”
We’ll leave the issue of Chu’s appearance aside – personally, she reminds us a bit of Thandie Newton. More substantively, it’s quite legal for PG&E to give Chu tons of free exposure for its crusade against Prop. H, even as she campaigns to keep her job in District 4.
“If they were, in the [anti-Prop. H] ads she is doing referring to her campaigning for supervisor, then we would have an issue,” confirms John St. Croix, the executive director of the Ethics Commission. “But she’s wearing two hats at the moment, supervisor and candidate. As long as she’s not wearing both at the same time, she’s okay.”
So, huff and puff as some may, PG&E is legally in the clear here. But anointing Chu’s visage on every San Francisco doorknob and beaming her, constantly, onto our televisions – well, as Philip J. Fry might say, “I see what you did there.”
Photo: Courtesy of http://pretepress.wordpress.com/category/sunset-district/
P.S. We realize Chu was never "elected" and, therefore, cannot be re-elected. But it'd be unwieldy to go into that kind of nitty-gritty in a headline.
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