MUD-Wrestling in California.

After the California energy industry's meltdown of recent years--complete with soaring utility rates, rolling blackouts, corporate bankruptcies and collapsing commitments to energy alternatives--voters in San Francisco are entertaining the notion of pushing the CEOs aside and taking charge of power distribution. If they vote to create a consumer-owned Municipal Utility District, in one of the boldest assertions of citizen control over utilities since the Progressive movement's municipalization drives of the early twentieth century, they could dramatically shift the debate not only on energy issues but also on questions of corporate accountability.