October 11: Your Wallet is On the Ballot

Question 1) All right, so, innovation isn’t an app. Innovation is a mindset and it’s moving past problems even though it doesn’t look like we can get past them. I’m going back to what I’m saying. First things first, we have to bust up this brand new monopoly that is Delta Utilities because if I think every single one of you had sticker shock when you opened up your bill and how much that fee was, we are not going to be able to just stop them from doing that. We’re going to have to bring in competitors so that the market stops them from doing that. But if we want to move to solar power sidewalks, if we want to be able to drop turbines into the river where at the undercurrent it’s 70 m an hour, we have to get there as a City Council. Nobody talks about that stuff. We got to put that stuff on the docket. Thank you.

Question 2) I think everybody in this room probably knows what a regressive tax is. If you don’t, a regressive tax hurts the people that have the lowest amount of income. We have tried to regulate Entergy. And what happened? We smacked them with a multi-million dollar lawsuit, I mean multi-million dollar fine. Who paid that? You paid that. Once again, we can try to regulate all we want, but if we really there’s only one way to bring down electricity costs for everybody in this city, and that’s to take back these power lines and bring in competitors. And guess what? The- the market will have them coming up with programs because if you want new- new windows on your house that are energy saving, you got a back order of about two years. Things are not going to come as quickly as we want to. That’s why we got to bust up Entergy now.

Question 3) I was actually going to say something different, until the Reverend showed me what the ordinance actually is, and in one of the pages of the ordinance, it says how to file the complaint, how we would file the complaint. Is there anybody in this room that is going to file a complaint against the mayoral candidates that have taken money from there? Anybody? I don’t think so. That’s not going to happen. Once again, I’m telling you, we can not regulate these machines. We have to bust them up. And obviously, I’m not going to be getting any donations from Entergy anytime soon. But I’m not going to take anything from anybody that is Delta, or any other one. But I may just happen to file a complaint if nobody else in this room will do so, because we need leadership to do something about this. 

Question 1) It’s a very important question. The first thing that I would say is Delta is owned by a private equity group which means they don’t even have the same reporting requirements as Entergy. So we have to take the job of a regulator of utilities very seriously; meaning that we request reporting and make sure that Delta gives us information related to rates, related to disconnects, and so on. We also have to stop approving rate increases. So, I think Delta probably acquired the natural gas business with the assumption that they’ll be able to do a rate increase in a year. So, we have to vote against that. And then we have to move forward with the docket that’s in front of the council right now for the neighborhood power, the virtual power plant, and the community solar program to where we can actually generate our own energy. When we implement consolidated billing, it makes it more feasible. So when we’re dealing with the storm, people don’t have to rely on gas powered generators. They can use the solar panels with batteries that they have attached to their home. So that’s how, that’s how I would address it. Thank you.

Question 2) I want to say I don’t know if we’ll have closing statements. So, I’m Matthew Willard. I’m running for City Council at-large division 1, ballot number 30. What I would say is, first of all, I don’t think any marketing or overhead operational cost should come out of the energy smart program. I think all of the money should be allocated to doing what’s in the best interest of the people in the city of New Orleans. Number two, we have to think about energy efficiency, and understand that a lot of the people who need the most need in the city of New Orleans live in homes that can not be become energy efficient because they have windows that don’t properly close, or they have a hole in their floor, or a hole in their roof. So, we need to utilize energy smart dollars to make repairs, longstanding repairs to homes that will pay dividends on the back end. So, the Council, I believe, would need access to people who are in rears and who go down to TCA month after month for help with bill payments because it would be a better investment for us to repair the hole in their floor as opposed to continuing helping them pay an inflated energy utility bill.

Question 3) I think, on this issue, the most important thing is that we elect good leadership, good, honest leadership onto the City Council. One of the biggest issues here is going to be transparency. I believe most of the city of New Orleans are not familiar with how the utility committee operates, don’t understand the process that they use with the docket system, and how to intervene, and how they can show up and talk in a utilities committee meeting. So I think we have to bridge that gap. We have to go out into the community to explain that process, and we have to invite them to show up to those utility committee meetings. Beyond that, I would say that we have to actually have a competitive bid process for the utility consultants that the City Council uses, because I know there’s been a lot of issues on that front too. So, we have to make sure that that process is open and transparent as well. And so I guess that’s how I’ll respond. Thank you.

Question 1) When we approve the sale of Delta, it push us further backwards. Delta needs to be regulated. We need to make sure that today, if you look at your utility or gas bill, it’s $29. We haven’t got to winter yet. What we, can you imagine what its going to be like in the wintertime? As a council member, I would regulate Entergy, I would regulate Delta. And I would make sure that we reduce that cost to the people, especially to our elderly and our low income homes. We-I will also look at finding a way to finance more solar systems for our community – put solar batteries in-in the homes, solar panels on the homes so that we can reduce some of the cost. But as a Councilmember, I would be very strict upon Delta and Entergy to make sure that we reduce those rates because the rates are going too high and we just can’t afford it no more. The cost of living is outrageous in the city of New Orleans.

Question 2) Unfortunately I helped Entergy with…to create the smart Energy Smart program. I didn’t realize that only 8% went toward low-income people, because I sign up the elderly and a lot of low-income people. As your Councilmember, I would look at that program and redesign it to make sure that we tilt it toward the elderly and the low-income. Also, as your Councilmember, I will make sure that we secure the funds to weatherize everybody’s homes, the elderly especially. There are community development block grant funds available. I have participated in that program, weatherized homes, fix homes for the renter because of the client, I mean the resident is living there. So we would look at doing programs that could help the low income that will help the elderly like weatherization, solar energy, uh, the smart program, the energy smart program, repairing homes, make sure that that the people that are living there, that we can repair their homes. I don’t care if it’s a renter, ‘cause there are funds available for renters to repair rental homes too.

Question 3) Transparency and accountability is what I stand on. I truly believe in it. We need to stop this pay-to-play process in every election, buying endorsements, collecting money — not just from Entergy, Delta, but climate control companies, all major corporations that is involved in our daily life. We should not accept money. And I wish we would do this and and I wish the people would stop voting for people that’s out here buying votes, buying for endorsement and collecting money from corporations and Entergy and Delta and climate control companies. All of these things is affecting us ‘cause when they accept that money, they have to dance to the music of those people. I only dance to the music of the people, the people, the voice of the people. I refuse to sell my soul, my morals, and my values, just so I could get a donation. Thank you.

Question 1) I want to be very clear that the sale of Delta to a private equity firm was a huge mistake. If I could shut it down tomorrow, then I would. But there is a way to get rid of it and that is the municipalization of Delta, of our gas sector. That’ll take a while, but if we get that done, if we get it under city-owned, then we can begin to decommission it. We can’t do it right now, but we can if it becomes under city uh ownership. So, let’s move towards that direction. Let’s also get every city-owned property electrified. Let’s make sure that if there’s a gas powered generator, we get uh solar panels on all those city-owned properties, they’re senior centers, whether they’re the City Hall, make sure it’s all no longer using fossil fuels at all. That’s the plan of action. Thank you.

Question 2) As a pastor, I’m always looking at things and saying: that thing may be good, but can we do better? So the Energy Smart program is good, but we can do better. We can do better by making sure that since the Energy Smart program doesn’t have a certain number of residents that are required to be enrolled in the program we can set a standard, and say there must be a number of people that are absolutely required to be enrolled in the program, and then make sure that we reach that benchmark. Secondly, let’s connect an indoor air quality standard to our healthy home ordinance. The people have homes that are, have stoves that are leaking gas, furnaces that are leaking gas, water heaters that are leaking gas. This creates, we need to make sure that the standard of the quality of air is reached, so that if it’s not, they got to replace those appliances with electrical appliances that are no longer affecting the air quality within that home. This will be better for all of us and especially better for low income people. And let’s make sure there’s language justice. Let’s make sure with built into that energy smart program, we’re reaching people that only speak Spanish, reaching people that only speak Vietnamese, and people that are disabled.

Question 3) I want to make it very clear that I’m very proud of my organization, the Greater New Orleans Interfaith Climate Coalition, that fought for an ordinance that made it illegal for any candidate running for office to accept campaign contributions from any entity that it would regulate. So, it’s already on the books against the law. We have to enforce it. If any candidate breaks the law, there is a fine, or there is jail time. We must enforce that. Secondly, we must close the loopholes, because one of my opponents, and it wasn’t Kenneth Cutno, had the CEO of Energy at his first fan fundraiser. That should be illegal. And but it wasn’t illegal for her to give a donation, but it was illegal, legal for her lawyers, her PACs and lobbyists to give money. It should be illegal for any lawyers, packs or lobbyists to give any money that is from any entity that the City Council is charged to regulate. Final, that should be the solution so that no money interferes with the true regulation of our utilities.

Question 1) So the current Council has passed a series of laws like LEED certified buildings, clean vehicles for our city fleet and clean city operations, but that actually hasn’t moved forward. So, that is an open docket currently with this current Council. And I would push to move that forward as one of our top priorities. The other thing is that we should, we need to fix RTA so we can stop relying on so many vehicles, make it more accessible to people, public transit and then electrify those vehicles. The other thing is we need to configure our energy smart program so that we can actually incentivize electrification across the city. So that could mean um incentivizing restaurants to use induction stoves. We can also provide incentives for people to have solar power and batteries across the city. That way we are less reliant on our gas generators that are currently powering when the power goes out. Thank you. 

Question 2) Okay. So I know we have Energy Smart program here and what we need to do is target through that program, make a revision of that program, and target those users that are using that energy and and cost burden for that and we can do that through a redesign with that program, and that’s something the council has direct access to, and can do, and they can, we can make them provide data about that, and then target it. The other thing I think that, you know, we’re missing currently on this Council is that we are not talking about it as Councilmembers, district Councilmembers. I’ve never, you know, I served as policy and budget director for Councilmember Giaurusso, and I’ve not once heard him speak about this at a neighborhood meeting or a community meeting. And so we’re also not doing a good job of talking about the programs that we have available for people in our community. So, that’s something that I know I will do at every single district council, at Council meetings, and as well as my community meetings because that’s how we get the information out to people. So being accessible to the community and making them aware of these programs is really our role as district council members. I also want to serve on the utilities committee for this reason and as well as potentially look at chairing the climate committee because this is such an important issue for our neighborhoods that we need to make sure that we, as council members, are getting this message out and prioritizing those areas.

Question 3) I think everybody up here has mentioned the same thing, that we, it is actually a law that we, as candidates and once we’re Councilmember, can not take money from Energy or Delta, and we shouldn’t be taking them from lobbyists or anyone else that is affiliated with anything that we regulate. So we need to make sure that that law is enforced. We need to make sure that it’s accessible to you to report and that people are held accountable. That’s for sure. The other thing I just want to briefly touch on is I know people have also said this is that we need to make sure that we’re having these consistent meetings every month, that we are having these utility meetings, but we also need to make it easier for you all to understand. It’s hard enough for us to understand how to read the-these dockets and how they work. So, we need to make sure that we as council members and our staff are all educated on how to read these things and then how to communicate that to you going forward. That way, it’s clear and consistent language so you’re able to understand, and engage with the council on these issues, because it is a unique power that this council has to regulate our utilities, and we need to make sure that we’re letting you have a voice in that as well.

Question 1) When I think about natural gas and Delta Utilities in particular, I think about what we’re using natural gas in our homes for. And that is usually water heating, house heating, and then stoves. So, if we’re thinking about how we’re going to reduce the use of those particular resources at our houses, we need to think about what the alternatives are and how we can make those more affordable and more accessible to everyone. So, first of all I think it’d be great if we could provide incentives for people to choose electric appliances whenever possible. On the other hand what we need to make sure that we are providing if we are encouraging that through incentives or other types of programming is that our electric expenses are not higher than our gas costs. Because that is a barrier and this would be encouraging people to incur more of an affordability crisis. So I would say first of all, we need to be thinking about how we can help especially our lower income homeowners replace their gas powered electronics or gas powered appliances with electronic powered appliances and then also make sure that we have the workforce development in place to service those when they are in disrepair. Thank you.

Question 2) The first job I ever had was working in a workforce development program with the Alliance for Affordable Energy, and what the youth were doing, 16 to 24 year olds at that time, in the early years, immediately after Katrina, is they were being trained in green job skills, like weatherization, and so they would work through The Alliance to learn how to weatherize homes, and then they would be deployed to low-income communities. I need, we need more of that kind of creative thinking about how to use the existing resources and to address multiple needs in our city at a time, so I would certainly begin with thinking through some activities like that, using thought partners like The Alliance and other local workforce development agencies, as well as community partners who know where our low income households are. It is very important to do targeted outreach to make sure that residents know what resources are available. Energy Smart, as a program, relies heavily on sort of online applications. Our elderly residents are less likely to know how to access those, so creating community spaces where we can invite those residents in and give them an opportunity to learn more about those resources and be connected with them is important. Thank you.

Question 3)

I don’t know if there are any Ted Lasso fans out there, but I like to live by this idea that it’s important to stay curious, and I feel like maybe our City Council has lost some of that over the last few years when it comes to Entergy. So, I’ve heard a couple of these ideas mentioned, and I think that shows that we’re all on the right track, right? But making sure that we are consistently bringing Entergy to the table. We have a utilities committee. We should be hosting meetings every month. We should be doing that regularly. It shouldn’t be on a whim. shouldn’t only be when a problem arises. We should be regularly making sure that that utility is interfacing with the public. Another thing that I would like to do is, again, I heard this idea earlier to make sure that we are revisiting who our consultants are and finding a consultant that isn’t just there because they’ve been doing the same job for 45 years, but because they are able to really meet the needs of New Orleanians and promote positive ways for us to spend fine money through programs like the community solar pro proposal that’s been on the table for a while. And then beyond that, we need to make sure that our regulations have real teeth. Thanks. 

Question 1) So obviously the profit incentive is one of the reasons why we sold our natural gas distribution to Delta which is again vulture capitalist funded and their whole business model is to have more people using more natural gas. The reason why natural gas is so bad is because of its chemical composition and its effect on our heat. Right? So obviously we need to reduce the amount of natural gas usage by making sure people are switching. I would actually hope that Entegy would pay like they should be doing for all of the services that they do for us to actually purchase electric water heaters and to try to get people away from using natural gas. We have to look at industrial usage as well. As Amy mentioned, restaurants is another one of the largest users of natural gas. So trying to move them away from natural gas usage is imperative. But at the end of the day, this is going to be a community effort, whether it’s not just in our homes with natural gas, but reduction of all fossil fuel, which we need to make sure that we are incentivizing a livable planet and livable city. Thank you.

Question 2) Thank you very much. So one of the things that has come up, obviously, is the idea of popular education, right? And making sure that people that are the most affected in this affordability crisis are the ones that are being prioritized first. I will push back a little bit on just going through neighborhood associations because there are working-class people that do not have the ability to show up to meetings like this. Right? So, we need to find that we’re actually meeting people number one, where they live, number two, where they work. Right now, we have a very low union density. If we’re working through labor organizing we can actually reach the people that are struggling the most where they work to make sure that they are able to keep the lights on. Most importantly though, we have to understand that people in arrears, people in debt to energy and hopefully to Delta, these are people that need that access to our rental assistance that need assistance to these types of programs, and they should automatically be enrolled in these programs. And finally, we need to make sure that all these cost-saving uh energy efficiencies are actually handled through our landlords, and as mentioned earlier, the healthy homes ordinance is certainly an opportunity to do that. I would advocate for a rental registry as well, so that we’re able to actually link up tenants that are looking for places to live with good landlords that actually take care of their houses and make sure that your bills are not skyrocketing. Thank you.

Question 3) So, first off, I don’t accept money from corporate entities, or PACs, or any businesses that make money off of the services that we regulate. As Pastor Manning mentioned, four years ago, when I ran for this office, I received a letter in the mail saying, you can not accept money from anything that you regulate. Right? Clearly, it’s not being enforced. The thing that I haven’t heard up here is the fact that we live in an oligarchy right now. Ever since Citizens United was passed, it allows corporations to take over our elections. We need a public integrity system. Probably an election commission would be great, that can oversee and make sure that we are able to do those reports against people that are supposed to be held liable. But number two, we need to remove the profit incentive. These people will not make money unless things are municipalized and actually public goods and services, rather than cash cows for their investors. So at the end of the day, we need to move money out of politics, and that means putting power into your hands to make sure that you’re able to hold these people accountable just as much as any, uh, you know, type of enforcement that’s happening right now. Thank you. 

Question 1) Our transition away from fossil fuels will only happen if we have a community-owned electrical provider. Right now, it’s owned by Wall Street, the 1%, and they’re out there for profit. We’ve talked about Delta Utilities being owned by Wall Street, but it’s the whole kit and caboodle that’s owned by people not interested in helping this city. We also need to work towards electrifying everything in this city. Our transit needs to be electrified. We need to electrify every parking lot that we have on this city needs to be covered in solar panels. The technology that we have currently is available, and can produce enough power for our city to be powered in the future. We have great technologies like solar batteries, purchase power agreements where you can buy solar from an actual producer themselves. We have the technology, but it’s going to have to start with owning energy at the community level that is built to provide reliable, affordable, and renewable energy. Thank you.

Question 2) So, I think that the big issue that we we’ve got to tackle especially is we’ve got to get the word out, and we’ve got lovely people back here from the Office of Resiliency, and their funding is basically about to get cut by our federal government, because most of their funding comes from federal grants, and that’s what most of our resilience programs in the city come from, is federal grants, and with the hostile state and federal administration they’re not going to have a lot of power to come out. We have to fund that a resilient line item in the budget going forward to make sure that these people have more people on the ground can get out to our community centers, get out to talk to people because really knowledge is power right now, and we’ve talked about people talking about renters, low-income people, our senior citizens that, you know, may not be technologically inclined. We have so many barriers of entry to getting into that, and that is a huge step to getting that out and, and making that happen. And then also, we’ve got to invest in a climate corps for our youth, because we’ve got to invest this energy smart money into building jobs that go forward, where people can register and not have a profit incentive for a contractor to come out and come fix something, or weatherize something on their homes. But we can get job training for young people and then we can also get people fixed up in their house to help weatherize and-and be better on their energy efficiency. So, there’s a lot of things that we can do, but really the funding thing within the city, is what we’ve got to fund going forward.

Question 3) So I advocate for banning people from taking personal donations from, from these groups, PACs, and super PACs, because we have people in this campaign right now that have taken money from Entergy through PACS, and say they don’t have any, you know, bias towards that. Also, the big issue is we have to get money completely out of politics in this city, because right now it’s becoming a contest of who has the most money, and who can get out in front of people. It’s not a battle of ideas and how to move the city forward. It’s all about who can, you know, raise the most money. The front runner in this in the mayoral election has raised $2 million, which is more than our congressmen raised in the last election cycle, because that’s what’s really dominating right now is who has the most money, and not who’s going to bring ideas to the table that’s going to move the city forward.

Question 1) The Louisiana legislature preempted the city of New Orleans from being able to stop any new gas hookups. So, we know we can’t stop gas services, but we can legislate away from them as a City Council. A couple ways I would do that is by making sure that the uh program to subsidize commercial grade cooking appliances in restaurants and kitchens is expanded. As an economic development director, I tried to pair those subsidies with our existing businesses in Algiers, and not a single business was eligible under the current guidelines. I would also like to make sure that we are expanding our public transit, especially in areas like Algiers and New Orleans East with far commute times, and third, I want to make sure that we are thinking about electric appliances in the city’s new healthy homes ordinance. This is an ordinance that says that all rentals must be kept to a livable standard. We were hoping to have grants to assist small landlords to make the changes to their units to make to meet these credentials. One thing we could do with these grants is incentivize electric appliances. Thank you.

Question 2) I’m going to talk about housing again, because I,  as an economist, and an economic developer, I think this is where a lot of our affordability problems start and end. We are not reaching low-income residents with the energy smart program right now, because we are not reaching renters. Right now, your landlord must sign off on your participation in this program for your home. No renter is able to enroll themselves without their landlord’s permission. We can tie this to the healthy homes ordinance, especially when an inspector from the city is coming in to make sure that compliance is being met, to offer a free consultation with Energy Smart, and to get people enrolled. This is a great way to get all of our people on board, and reach a much larger portion of our city, especially people who may not have trust in this system. Free things do sound too good to be true to a lot of folks. And if you are an energy burdened resident, if you are a housing burdened resident, I want to make sure we are building the trust necessary to let people open their doors to this program. And that comes with real work, not just from energy but from your city councilors as well.

Question 3) I think it is clear that there is no place in City Council for campaign donations from energy, or from PACs. That has got to stop. I also want to point out that right now, when the city council chooses to raise your energy rates, they’re only doing so based on the quarterly shareholder reports that Entergy submits. That is not sufficient financial documentation. I have a background in public finance. I want to see your books as your regulator, that is my right. I also want to make sure that we are rebidding the opportunity to do a performance audit on Entergy. This was bid out once, and no local firm would touch it. Imagine what a chilling effect that monopoly has on our right to understand our energy utility in this city. We can do better. I think we have got to try again. We deserve to be aware of what is happening on the management and financial side at Entergy as their regulator. That is what regulation is.

Question 1) First thing I do is have Energy Smart programs. You know, one of the things I saw when I went to Together New Orleans forum, they had a platform called the solar lighthouses. So, I invest a lot of money in that because I think Together New Orleans got it. I partner with a lot of groups, but old Delta, I regulate Delta, making sure that the state is coming to handle Delta, right? Cause we know they sold Delta Utilities and we know why they sold it because it was the Shaw Group. And at the end of the day, I’ll fight so hard to advocate, get with the experts and see the best ways to deal with gas. And also, I’ll push for a health study to make sure, like carbon monoxide and the gas, not harming the people or nothing. And that’s what I’ll do. I’ll fight, fight, fight. And I don’t care who’s the mayor, who’s the councilman. I’m bringing the smoke. I’m bringing the fire. I’m going to fight for the people like never before, ’cause they deserve better.

Question 2) I think one, the city council should have a relief program for the homeowners, and I’ll tell you how we pay for it. Entergy, when we look, our lights go out, and it don’t even have to be a storm. Our lights go off. So we got to start fining Entergy. We got to hold Entergy accountable. Let’s talk about it. Most people don’t want to hold them accountable, because some of them get those big donations, and they say they don’t get it, but they get it through family members. So, at the end of the day, one will be a relief program holding Entergy, making sure they regulating. And if they’re not doing the job, Entergy, I think we should bring other companies here. We should bring competitors and deal with Entergy. And then we’ll stop the nepotism, the cronyism, and the favoritism. Thank you.

Question 3) Well, Mr. Batiste, number one, y’all know me from being on the news, so I’m going to hold every Councilmember accountable, and if they’re not doing it, I’m taking it to the public. I’m calling them out. I’m going to let the people know who’s selling them out, who’s not telling the truth because we need justice on that council. We have look at Councilmembers played games with Entergy because they are their friends. But…Batista is not coming to play. He coming to deal with them. Y’all know I did the recall, and I recall one of them up there if they ain’t doing their job, because the people are hurting. They are suffering, and they’re tired of these gangs. So, I’m going to hold them accountable, and if I got to put the handcuffs on them myself, I would. They going to jail.

Question 1) When a storm happens, we have natural gas, and people come to our house because we have gas, and they don’t have any power. So, he did make a really good point. Trying to get people to get off of gas is going to be a little difficult mindset wise. That’s why I believe solar is so important. As a business owner, I’m always looking at waste, and that’s a huge thing because we’re facing a hundred million budget deficit. So, some of the things that we want to happen can’t always happen. So, the first thing that I would do, I was I would redirect the funds that we’re wasting now on emergency contract towards solar towards storm resilient infrastructure, and also to retrofit affordable housing, I would also give incentives to builders to contractors to make sure that this is built in the plan before they start the build, so that would be part of the system. That’s all, thank you.

Question 2) I believe the question was how could we make energy efficiency more cost, savings for low-income families? And you know, I don’t know if anybody, most people know this, I guess, that 6% is what people pay on a national average. We pay about 25%, and that is absolutely insane. I would push for targeted outreach and mostly to renters because we’re losing a lot of citizens and I don’t think people realize that a lot of people that we’re losing are renters, and whether you however you feel on that on the on the the side of the scale, if you’re a homeowner or you’re a renter, that’s a huge tax base. So, I always look at the big picture of things and when I’m looking at the big picture, if all of our renters are, several renters are leaving, and we’re taking in less income, we have a budgeting problem. So, it’s not just about the lights. So, we have to make sure that we hold landlords accountable to make sure that they also get these efficiencies in all their rental properties. Thank you.

Question 3) The very first thing I want to do with Entergy is, I want to make sure that they are accountability based. I want to make sure that they’re so transparent, that the budget is tied into whatever it is that they want done. So I want to set benchmarks ahead of time. So if they, and we would measure everything. So like we measure outages, and if they don’t make that benchmark, we get money back. But more importantly, I want to definitely make sure that it’s, it should be against the law, in my opinion, for candidates to receive any money whatsoever for an an entity that it regulates. That’s a direct conflict of interest, and we all suffer from it. So that’s the very first thing that to me should be against the law.