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A Fearless Public Servant:
Bob Anthony's Crusade
by Frosty Troy
The Oklahoma Observer - August 10, 1999
One man with courage makes a majority. --Andrew
Jackson
Visualize this scenario: Some future group of
Oklahoma historians are mulling over this era.
"Whoa!" one of the exclaims. "I keep
bumping into the name of Bob Anthony? Anybody up to speed on this
guy?"
"Funny that you should mention it,"
another replied. "He may be Oklahoma's best kept secret. It's the
old story of getting things done if you don't care who gets the
credit."
Who is this quiet, balding, unprepossessing
Republican and why will he be considered the most notable independent
political spirit of his time?
Anthony, scion of the C.R. Anthony Co. empire, went
on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission 10 years ago and has profoundly
changed the way that body does business.
And it you think you don't have a dog in that
fight, guess again. Virtually everything that touches commerce in
Oklahoma-- utilities,
transportation, oil & gas, etc., are subject to Corporation
Commission regulation. Nobody can pick an Oklahoman's pocket quicker.
If average Sooners knew how many tens of millions
of dollars Anthony has saved them, they would erect a statue and
declare a holiday in his name.
Until Anthony showed up, the agency was a wholly
owed subsidiary of the very entities it was supposed to regulate.
Honest men and women who went on the commission ended up compromised,
if not outright corrupted, by the sea of money and influence.
There had been a few who bucked it-- the late Jan
Eric Cartwright was notable for taking on the economic powers, such as
"the only phone company in town."
Anthony has paid a price, not unlike the late
Democratic governor J. Howard Edmondson, who drove the Old Guard money
changers out of the Capitol and virtually reconstituted state
government as a noble and honest enterprise.
Consider the Anthony decade:
Under his prodding, the commission adopted the
strongest ethics policy of any state agency.
He personally sponsored and persistently defended
the commission's 1992 rate order which resulted in Southwestern Bell
making the largest refund and rate reduction in state history.
In an effort to perform his constitutional duty to
correct the abuses of regulated utilities and to stop utility lawyers
and lobbyists from distributing "walking around money," he
wore a wire in a 1989-1994 FBI investigation.
It resulted in felony convictions and prison terms
for an ex-chairman and an ex-Commission general counsel who was
subsequently working for Bell. Other Bell officials involved exercised
their Fifth Amendment privilege. One of those who offered Anthony
money was hurriedly transferred to Texas.
(The Bell lawyer who went to prison, Bill Anderson,
was an attorney for the Gaylord clan when they owned Publishers
Petroleum and an express trucking company doing business before the
commission.)
Processing of oil and gas applications and improved
collection of fines for violation of pollution prevention rules were
streamlined.
Instead of a decade of more utility rate increases,
gas, electric and telephone customers have actually seen occasional
rate reductions and even a few refunds in recent years, thanks to
Anthony.
By agency rule making and commission orders,
Oklahoma now has the two largest toll-free calling areas in America,
including statewide modern telephone equipment and technology
standards which have benefited distance learning, telemedicine and
economic development, especially in rural areas.
The commission adopted a set of modern and
progressive rules to bring customer choice and competition to gas
utility service. It also adopted requirements for a prudence review
and hearing before any of the millions of dollars in claimed
"stranded costs" can possibly be charged to ratepayers.
Deregulation of intrastate motor carriers occurred
without the disruption opponents had predicted.
He supported Governor David Walters against a
legislative legal challenge to the governor's line-item veto
authority. The State Supreme Court adopted his position, upholding the
constitutional limitation that a legislative bill must deal only with
a single subject. This opinion stopped the practice of legislative
"logrolling" in Oklahoma.
It was Anthony's request for an Attorney General's
opinion-- later supported by a Supreme Court opinion-- which reversed an
attempt by the Legislature to amend the Constitution without a vote of
the people. The amendment would have given an illegal mid-term pay
raise to the commissioners.
That decision so angered Democratic Commissioner
Cody Graves he quit the commission and turned to consulting and
lobbying for those the commission regulates.
In the simple and direct manner that has come to characterize
this remarkable public official, Anthony says of his service:
"On January 9, 1989 I accepted a position of
public trust and took a constitutional oath to enforce the law,
supervise rates, correct abuses, and prevent extortion and
discrimination by regulated companies."
He has kept his pledged word to a degree rare in
politics.
Anthony took an unsuccessful fling at the Sixth
District congressional seat, only to be met by icy indifference-- if
not outright hostility-- from the moguls in the GOP who resented his
picking on their golden geese.
His position is not unlike that of one of
Oklahoma's greatest governors, Republican Henry Bellmon, who was
hissed and booed by some at a Republican state convention. his
offense? Raising taxes to improve woefully inadequate public
education.
A former aide tells the story of Anthony being
upbraided at a country club for his aggressive posture on the
commission-- especially toward Bell.
Anthony says that all the facts of the bribery
probe are not yet available to the public.
It was his gutsy decision to help the FBI that
nearly brought down fellow Republican Commissioner J.C. Watts, who
took "walking around money" from utility lobbyists without
reporting it as required by law. FBI secret tapes on Watts were highly
damaging.
Watts, who had friends in high places, dodged an
indictment. The FBI was appalled.
The United States Supreme Court dismissed a 1994
suit filed by none other than Kenneth W. Starr, lawyer for
Southwestern Bell. Starr claimed Anthony was biased because he helped
the FBI investigate the bribery scheme that operated at the
Corporation Commission.
In 1995, the FBI recognized Anthony with the Louis
E. Peters Service Award, its highest honor given to a citizen,
"who at great personal sacrifice, has unselfishly served his
community and the nation."
The commission adopted new exploration incentives
and new procedures to accommodate horizontal drilling, seismic
testing, and production from tight sands. Also, under Anthony's
leadership they added new oil and gas rules and utility provisions to
help prevent the premature plugging of marginal wells.
Not one in a hundred Oklahomans would recognize
Anthony if they bumped into him on the street. His efforts were
usually relegated to the business page of the Daily Disappointment--
the least read section of the paper.
Not once in a turbulent decade did the
investigative team of the Daily Disappointment turn their resources
toward overt corruption on the commission. Anthony could have used
their help.
One of their reporters said off the record that
they had asked to pursue the commission mess but were re buffed. Why
did the paper look the other way? The Gaylord clan which owns the
paper was business partners of Southwestern Bell in Texas. One Bell
executive was a fishing buddy of E.L. Gaylord, then publisher of the
paper.
OG&E and ONG are important advertisers and
their executives are big dogs at the country club.
To Anthony, when the election is over, it's not
what party you belong to but your level of integrity in doing the
right thing.
He has been a blend of matchless energy and a
combination of intelligence and dogged persistence.
Don't let anybody tell you there is no such thing
as an honest politician.
They haven't met Bob Anthony.
© 1999 The Oklahoma Observer
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