When activists from the Party for Socialism and Liberation stepped to the microphone at the Public Service Commission’s October 22 meeting, they did more than oppose a few agenda items. They told Louisiana what they actually want.
“The solution,” one speaker said, “is to take electricity out of private hands altogether.” When Commissioner Mike Francis asked whether he wanted to change Louisiana from capitalism to socialism, the answer was yes.
That wasn’t a slip. It’s the platform.
PSL is a Marxist-Leninist party founded in 2004. Its Louisiana chapter runs the Take Back the Power campaign, whose petition demands “public, democratic control over our utilities.” The national party program spells out what that means. It calls for converting private property into socially owned property, with expropriation carried out “without compensation to the capitalist owners.” The same program calls for ending all fossil fuel and nuclear energy use.
Put those pieces together and apply them here. Louisiana’s grid runs heavily on natural gas and is anchored by two nuclear plants, River Bend and Waterford 3. The PSL plan would seize the companies that run them without paying for them, then shut down the fuels that keep them running. What replaces them, who restores power after the next Ida, and who pays for any of it went unanswered.
And who would be in charge? Not the Commission. Speakers spent the morning accusing commissioners of being bought. Not voters through the normal process either. “Democratic control,” in PSL’s telling, means control by people who share their politics.
Louisiana doesn’t have to guess how well good intentions keep the lights on. Removing shareholders doesn’t restore a line. Capital, crews, planning, and accountability do.
Ratepayers have real grievances: high bills and outages are among them. Those fights belong in rate cases, at the ballot box, and in front of the Commission. The answer to a high bill isn’t handing the grid to a party that would take it without paying, ban the fuels that power it, and figure out the rest later.