California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial campaign received a bunch of contributions Wednesday totaling more than $23,500 from PG&E’s upper management:

The only other top PG&E officials to give money to Brown’s campaign made their contributions back in December: Senior Vice President of Regulatory Relations Thomas Bottorff gave $1,000 and Government Relations Director Lawrence Simi gave $1,500.

Though not a lot of money in the context of the millions Brown has raised for his gubernatorial bid, this week’s contributions come even as Brown’s office has been looking into PG&E’s attempts to influence public policy.

PG&E has bought itself (with $15.5 million so far) a ballot measure on this June’s primary election ballot, Proposition 16, which would require local governments to get the approval of two-thirds of their voters before providing electricity to new customers or expanding such service to new territories if any public funds or bonds are involved, or before providing electricity through a community choice program, if any public funds or bonds are involved. Critics say PG&E is playing on populist themes in order to block local governments from abandoning the utility giant in favor of power contracts with smaller, greener energy producers – a movement that’s been gaining steam in recent years.

The SF Bay Guardian last month editorialized:

When the state Legislature approved the law allowing cities to create local public power co-ops, the bill specifically barred private utilities from interfering. So it’s easy to argue that Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s ballot initiative to squash public power is, in fact, direct interference.

After all, the measure would create an almost insurmountable obstacle to creating community choice aggregation.

And the attorney general of California ought to be making that precise argument in court and trying to get this ballot initiative thrown out.

Sen. Mark Leno, a strong foe of the measure, told us he’s been in touch with Attorney General Jerry Brown’s staff, and is urging them to take action. He said he’s been assured the office is looking into the issue.

Brown spokeswoman Christine Gasparac told me today that her “office has stated that we’re looking into the issue in Marin, in which the County is in the process of implementing community choice aggregation, and local officials have made complaints against PG&E interfering in that process. Judicial review of the legality of a ballot initiative before it has been considered by the voters is highly disfavored.”

UPDATE @ 4:10 P.M.: “This campaign has raised almost $15 million from people on both sides of a variety of issues, it has no bearing on the way the professional attorneys and the Attorney General conduct the people’s business,” said Brown campaign spokesman Sterling Clifford.