The Sierra Club has challenged Mayor Gavin Newsom to debate the merits of Prop. H, the Clean Energy Act that Newsom and Pacific Gas & Electric are opposing. If Newsom accepts, the Commonwealth Club has agreed to host the debate at high noon on Oct. 23. No word yet on who would argue for the measure, but it would most likely be its author, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who is mulling a bid for Newsom’s job in a couple years.
The Mayor’s Office is treating the request like any other, with press secretary Nathan Ballard telling me, “We received this invitation this morning, and we’ll consider it along with every other invitation the Mayor has received.” It’ll be interesting to see whether Newsom, who is exploring a run for governor, rises to the challenge. His track record of helping local measures and candidates he supports is fairly dismal, and the case that PG&E (and Eric Jaye, the consultant Newsom shares with the corporate utility) has been making with regular mailers has been based mostly on alarmist lies and distortions.
Hopefully, an open and honest debate would help set the record straight, assuming Newsom has any interest in that sort of thing.