Public Service Commission short-circuit doesn’t mean Georgia is blue

Georgia Democrats are gleeful over their recent Public Service Commission (PSC) victories, and rightly so. They toppled two incumbents and are primed for victory laps around the state. Meanwhile, pundits like yours truly have been conducting election post-mortems to see what can be gleaned from the November trouncing.

While Democrats are excitedly hoping this is a sign that Georgia is now—or is at least turning—solidly blue, I am not so sure. Yes the margin of victory was astounding—Alicia Johnson defeated Tim Echols 62.74% to 37.26% and Peter Hubbard vanquished Fitz Johnson 62.93% to 37.07%—but there is more to dissect in this story.

For those of you unfamiliar with the PSC, it is a board of five members who regulate utilities and in some cases even determine how much they can charge customers for staples like electricity. This is the result of the antiquated, anti-competitive system Georgia perpetuates. Under the current model, the state awards electric providers geographic monopolies in exchange for being regulated. It is a pretty terrible paradigm, especially when free market competition could easily replace much of it, but I digress.

Given this arrangement, voters want the PSC to keep their rates reasonably low, but the commission has been drifting in the other direction. “Georgia Power bills have gone up six times in the last three years: three times as part of an overall rate hike, twice to pay for new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, and once to cover high natural gas prices,” WABE reported.

The rate hikes for Plant Vogtle particularly sting. A conglomerate of monopoly utilities decided to build two new nuclear reactors at Vogtle and produced enticing cost estimates and timetables. They turned out to be dead wrong. The reactors were more than $20 billion over budget and seven years behind schedule. Captive ratepayers are on the hook for this boondoggle, and the PSC was inextricably involved—to the displeasure of many.

Perhaps sensing angst in the electorate and with elections looming, the PSC took action. “Earlier this year, the commission voted unanimously to freeze base power rates for the next three years—though bills will still be adjusted next year for fuel prices and hurricane cleanup costs,” WABE continued. This was too little too late. I imagine many voters viewed the PSC as regularly siding with corporate interests to the detriment of ratepayers and only changing direction once elections neared.

This alone could have spelled doom for the two incumbent PSC commissioners on the ballot, but the punches kept coming. Their races were the only statewide elections this year, and they coincided with a host of municipal elections, which in some ways favor Democrats. So heavily Democratic voting blocs, like those from Atlanta, turned out in droves, while Republicans did not. Other than the PSC races, many had no other reason to go vote. My ballot, for instance, only had the two PSC races and nothing else.

Then there is the question of campaigning. Had I not been a political nerd and heavily involved in government, then I might not have even known that there was an election this year. I received zero mailers from the incumbents and only one ad for the Democrats reached my mailbox, although it was not addressed to me. I presume they campaigned, but anecdotally, I did not see much evidence of substantive, wholesale voter outreach—or at least efforts to reach me. I’d wager that many Republicans may not have even known of the election and its importance. Statewide turnout was a paltry 21.5%.

Thanks to a legal dispute questioning whether the PSC’s statewide elections were inconsistent with the Voting Rights Act, this was the first PSC election in many years. In fact, before this election, Echols had not faced a general election since 2016. Fitz Johnson was appointed by Gov. Kemp in 2021 and never before faced a PSC election. This did the incumbents little good. If legal wrangling keeps candidates off the ballot for many years, then it can be difficult to achieve the kind of name ID needed to capture the imagination of voters, especially if their campaigns struggle.

Even with Johnson and Hubbard’s election, the PSC still enjoys a 3-2 Republican majority, but it is no longer an exclusive 5-0 Republican club. Time will tell how this influences the PSC, and while political scientists desperately search for clues to determine what the democratic victories mean for the future, I wouldn’t read too much into it. The PSC is important, but it is hard to get voters excited about it. Due to a number of variables, the election was simply stacked against Republicans.