Surely you’ve heard the ads, wedged between Steve Poizner’s cries of “Liberal!” and Meg Whitman’s attempts to sound tough.

“And we don’t even have the right to vote on it!” whine the indignant actors, as if they’re victims of an evil government conspiracy.

Don’t be fooled. These ads, like the rest of PG&E’s estimated $45 million campaign to pass Proposition 16, are full of lies. PG&E calls the measure the Taxpayers’ Right to Vote Act, but it’s really the PG&E Monopoly Protection Act. So we can’t resist another reminder to vote no.

The proposition would force local governments to gain approval from two-thirds of voters before creating a local utility, like those in Santa Clara and Palo Alto, or a community choice energy program like the one Marin just started.

PG&E wants voters to believe it’s just making sure they have a say. What a crock. If that were the case, it would have set the vote threshold at a simple majority. We might even have supported it. But a two-thirds requirement means the will of 66 percent of voters can be thwarted by 34 percent, making any proposal easy to defeat.

Don’t take our word for it. PG&E’s CEO told shareholders that the purpose of Proposition 16 is to save the expense of fighting every city that wants to defect. Groups like the Chamber of Commerce should be ashamed about backing this scam.

The fact is some government utilities are beneficial to the public. Ask anybody from Santa Clara if they’d like to trade their city utility for PG&E, whose residential customers, by one estimate, pay an average of 84 percent more per kilowatt hour than Santa Clara residents.

Voters already have a lot of opportunities to weigh in on big decisions like forming utilities, which don’t happen overnight. There are public meetings, and often a bond measure is needed. Residents can circulate petitions for a referendum if a bad plan gets passed. But these projects are often started not by government run amok but at the behest of residents who want sources of power that are cheaper and greener than what PG&E provides.

One thing that’s clear about PG&E’s campaign is where it got the $45 million for all those ads. From you. Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a PG&E-free city like Santa Clara. Exercise your right to vote on Proposition 16: Say no. Tell PG&E to stop spending your money to thwart your best interests — and to stop lying.