PG&E — the same company that's been responsible for devastating wildfires, declared bankruptcy, and has raised your energy bills to eye-watering levels — apparently has enough spare cash lying around to wage political war against Tom Steyer's bid for governor. Ten million dollars. From a company that charges you a premium to keep the lights on and has repeatedly failed at its core job of not setting the state on fire.

Let's be clear: you don't have to be a Steyer fan to find this deeply troubling. Steyer is a billionaire climate activist whose policy prescriptions often lean toward the kind of heavy-handed government intervention we'd normally push back on. But when a monopoly utility with a body count mobilizes a war chest specifically to take out one candidate, it raises a straightforward question: what exactly is PG&E so afraid of?

The answer is probably accountability. Steyer has made utility reform and climate policy central to his platform, and PG&E clearly sees that as an existential threat to its cozy, underregulated existence. Rather than, say, investing that $10 million in infrastructure upgrades or wildfire prevention, they'd rather play kingmaker.

This is crony capitalism at its ugliest — a quasi-monopoly using its ratepayer-funded profits to manipulate who governs the state. Whether you're on the left or the right, this should make your blood boil.

Meanwhile, in a related tale of money and politics behaving badly, San Francisco's Ethics Commission is reportedly investigating contractors who made prohibited donations to mayoral candidates. It's almost like there's a pattern here: entities that depend on government favor using cash to buy political outcomes.

Here's a radical idea: maybe the companies that can't stop breaking rules and burning down forests shouldn't get to pick our next governor. Just a thought.