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Public utilities seek LGBTQ contractors — whether they keep the lights on or not

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California Democrats have embraced a new form of favoritism: contracts for businesses that are state-certified as being owned by LGBTQ individuals.

The scheme operates through the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which regulates privately owned utility companies.

In 1986, Gov. George Deukmejian signed Assembly Bill 3678,which required certain CPUC-regulated utilities to submit annual “plans” for buying goods and services from female- and minority-owned companies. Two years later, CPUC created its “Supplier Diversity Program,” which would enforce the law and set contracting “goals” for large utilities.

Under a series of Democratic governors, the program has expanded to include gay-owned businesses. In September 2014, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring CPUC to recognize “LGBT-owned businesses” as eligible for supplier-diversity benefits.

Five years later, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded the program, “encouraging” other companies involved in the energy sector to award contracts to gay-owned firms.

In the years that followed, CPUC faced activist pressure as it implemented the LGBTQ expansion. BuildOUT California, a since-rebranded LGBT building-industry organization, sent a letter to the commission arguing that “homophobia” existed within “the ranks of the utility companies.” The state’s legislative LGBTQ caucus suggested in a 2021 letter that even considering lower procurement targets was “an insult to the LGBTQ community.”

By 2022, CPUC had fully implemented the expansion. In practice, this meant establishing a “goal” for utility companies with annual revenues exceeding $25 million to buy things from state-certified LGBTQ businesses: 0.5% of procurement in 2022; 1% in 2023; and 1.5% in 2024 and beyond.

This scheme raises an obvious question: How does a........

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