Gas prices are the highest they’ve ever been, and basic energy costs, including those necessary to heat and air-condition homes, keep going up. The result is that nearly a quarter of the country says they’ve had to cut back on other necessary expenses, such as food and medicine, just to pay their energy bills.

One would rightly assume that this is a crisis. Yet in California, where residents pay 66% more for electricity than other homeowners across the United States, and where the poverty rate is the highest in the country, Democratic officials don’t seem to care at all about whether their citizens can afford to keep the lights on.