PacBell Ads Looking for Sympathy

Can a company overturn $44 million in penalties from the California Public Utilities Commission by taking out full-page ads and lobbying state legislators? Pacific Bell hopes so.

The state’s largest phone company, stunned last month by a PUC decision that levied fines and called many PacBell sales practices illegal, has appealed the ruling and embarked on a publicity campaign to drum up support for the company.

While the decision is on appeal, PacBell and its consumer group opponents are barred from discussing the issue with PUC members. PUC complaint cases are handled much like trials, complete with a presiding administrative law judge, motions, hearings, piles of evidence and witnesses giving testimony.

But PacBell’s lobbyists have spent weeks pressing PacBell’s case with state legislators and business groups, urging them to write or call the PUC on the company’s behalf.

“Everything that Pacific Bell does is legal and ethical,” said PacBell spokesman John Britton.

Consumer groups have begun to fight back with a counter-lobbying effort in Sacramento. And Friday, San Diego’s Utility Consumers Action Network filed its own appeal of the PacBell sales decision--arguing that PacBell should be penalized about $100 million instead of the $44 million called for in the ruling.