Gray Davis' Edison problem
The governor struggles to orchestrate a multimillion-dollar bailout of the utility that has spent big bucks on his campaign.
By William Bradley
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July 31, 2001 | Ever since his January State of the State address, in which he dwelled on the state's power crisis but neglected to mention private utilities' central role in devising the deregulation scheme that caused it, California Gov. Gray Davis has been searching for a way to bail out the insolvent Southern California Edison, which has contributed more than $350,000 to Davis' campaign coffers. Now his drive to save the battered utility, which claims nearly $4 billion in debt and is no longer creditworthy enough to buy power, has gone into overtime, with no solution yet in sight. An attempt to bring the California Assembly back from its summer recess to vote on a new bailout bill Friday was just the latest such effort to fall apart.