WASHINGTON-A consumer group petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission to remove Commissioner Susan Kennedy from the agency’s review of the bill of rights for telecom consumers.
“Allowing a commissioner who has consistently displayed hostility and antipathy to the existing rules to vote on the ‘reconsideration’ of those rules would violate fundamental principles of due process,” The Utility Reform Network told the CPUC in a filing Tuesday.
TURN advocates for consumers on issues before the CPUC.
In March, Kennedy won backing to suspend the bill of rights and re-examine consumer protection rules approved last year in the face of opposition from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mobile-phone industry. The terms of two CPUC members who voted for the bill of rights expired last year. They have been replaced by two Schwarzenegger appointees.
Kennedy is the assigned commissioner of the bill of rights review, a position that gives her significant control of the issue.
Kennedy could not immediately be reached for comment.
Meantime, the California Assembly is scheduled to begin debate this month on a Senate-passed bill to write into state law a telecom consumer bill of rights.
