Bob Anthony briefs lawmakers on 1989 bribery case
Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony made a rare appearance in front of a House committee Monday, briefing members about the latest lawsuit over a decades-old bribery case involving Southwestern Bell.
A group of former customers and regulators of the telephone company have appealed a 2-1 decision by Anthony’s two colleagues on the Corporation Commission to dismiss their bid to reopen the case. Anthony voted against the dismissal in September, and an appeal is now pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
During an hourlong briefing Monday, Anthony told members of the House General Government Oversight and Accountability committee the history and background of a 1989 Southwestern Bell decision tainted by a bribed vote at the Corporation Commission.
Anthony, who was a new commissioner at the time, helped federal authorities secure bribery convictions against former Corporation
Commissioner Bob Hopkins and Bill Anderson, an attorney working on behalf of Southwestern Bell. Both men, who are now dead, served time in federal prison.
Anthony said the state has a long, unfortunate history with corruption, from the Supreme Court scandal of the 1960s to the county commissioner scandals of the early 1980s. Anthony, who is supportive of efforts to reopen the 1989 Southwestern Bell case, said the state shouldn’t let stand an order that resulted from a bribed vote.
“This is a basic issue of honesty in government,” Anthony said. “I don’t care if there’s a tiny amount of money. If bribery and corruption occurs, are we going to say in Oklahoma government, ‘That’s just the way things are?’ I hope not, but unfortunately, there’s a terrible history of bribery and corruption in Oklahoma.”
Anthony said an expert witness for the group who filed to vacate the 1989 commission order said former Southwestern Bell customers could be owed as much as $16 billion in refunds, with most of that coming from compounded interest. The figure comes from a 2015 affidavit of James Proctor, a former director of the commission’s public utility division.
That refund estimate hasn’t been subjected to accounting scrutiny, and other parties in the case have called it inflated.
Southwestern Bell, now AT&T Oklahoma, has repeatedly said it invested the excess revenue from the 1989 case, which involved a tax windfall from a change in federal tax laws.
“Over the past 25 years, this case has been rejected at least six times by either the Supreme Court or the Corporation Commission, including a vote to dismiss by Commissioner Anthony himself in 2003,” AT&T Oklahoma said in a statement.
With the state facing an estimated $878 million shortfall for the 2018 fiscal year, Anthony said local, state and federal government entities who were Southwestern Bell customers at the time could also be eligible for refunds if the case were properly adjudicated. He said his “back of the envelope” calculations could amount to between $200 million and $500 million in refunds for government customers.
“You all have some challenges with your budget, not only this year but next year and the next year, and those numbers would be significant,” he said.
Some members asked Anthony what the Legislature could do at this stage of the proceedings. He said lawmakers could potentially review the case as part of a broader task force to study the Corporation Commission under House Bill 1377. After being amended in the Senate, the legislation is awaiting a final vote in the House.
“I think you ought to ask questions,” Anthony said. “Hold people accountable. Do it to the commissioners. Do it to the commission staff.”
The Corporation Commission’s deputy general counsel has filed a brief at the Supreme Court in support of the commission’s 2-1 vote in September to dismiss the latest effort to reopen the case. So has the attorney general’s office, which represents consumers in rate cases. Their arguments center on who has jurisdiction to reopen the 1989 case.
“The attorney general continues to vehemently condemn the bribery and public corruption involved in PUD 260 (the 1989 decision),” the attorney general’s brief said. “This condemnation does not mean, however, that the attorney general can ignore the rule of law. The commission does not now have the jurisdiction to go back and alter the outcome of its prior orders.”