ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Public Service Commission gets a rare turn at the top of the ballot in 2025, a chance to focus public attention on a regulatory body that sets rates and oversees generation plans for Georgia Power, which serves 2.3 million customers statewide.
Four Democrats and two Republicans are running in June 17 primaries. Early voting has begun and continues through June 14.
Georgia Power customers have seen bills rise six times in recent years because of higher natural gas costs, construction projects including two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, and other factors. A typical Georgia Power residential customer now pays more than $175 a month, including taxes.
All the challengers are calling for change, while Republican incumbent Tim Echols defends his record.
The five-member commission, currently all Republicans, also oversees some natural gas rates for Atlanta Gas Light and Liberty Gas.
Through Wednesday, turnout has been microscopic, with 15,000 ballots cast on the Democratic side and fewer than 10,000 in the GOP race.
What elections are taking place?
There are two separate primary elections taking place. A voter can choose either a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot.
In each race, candidates must live in a certain district, but run statewide.
In the District 2 race, Lee Muns of Harlem is challenging Echols, who lives in Hoschton. Echols has been on the Public Service Commission since 2011. The winner will face Democrat Alicia Johnson in November.
In the District 3 race, four Democrats are vying to challenge Republican incumbent Fitz Johnson in November. They are Daniel Blackman, Peter Hubbard and Keisha Waites of Atlanta and Robert Jones of Brookhaven. If no Democrat wins a majority June 17, a runoff will be held July 15.
Why are Georgians voting in 2025?
Georgia usually doesn’t have statewide elections in odd-numbered years, but these were pushed back after elections were delayed by a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the statewide voting scheme as discriminatory to Black people. No Georgia Public Service Commission elections have been held since 2022 because of the lawsuit.
Johnson was appointed to the commission in 2021 by Gov. Brian Kemp and has never faced voters. He was supposed to run for the last two years of his predecessor’s term in 2022. Instead, the District 3 winner can run again next year for a six-year term, after lawmakers rewrote the terms.
Echols was supposed to run for a six-year term in 2022. Instead, the District 2 winner will serve for five years, with the next election in 2030.
Are votes for Daniel Blackman going to count?
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger disqualified Blackman from the ballot, ruling he hadn’t moved into Fulton County, part of District 2, before the required year before the election. But a judge decided Blackman could remain on the ballot until the judge rules on Blackman’s appeal.
Blackman lost a 2020 race for the commission and was appointed by President Joe Biden as southern region administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Blackman said he moved to Atlanta in October. But he voted in Forsyth County in November and didn’t switch his registration to Fulton County until April.
Blackman said he’s not backing down, though.
“There’s a legal ongoing process happening right now,” he said. “We have been deemed to be back on the ballot.”
Do candidates believe Georgia Power bills are too high?
Echols touts a three-year freeze in rates agreed to by Georgia Power and commission staff, calling it “the most important thing the commission can do right now.”
“The inflation in this economy has been brutal and put many people in a difficult situation,” Echols wrote in a statement.
But Muns and the Democrats running in District 3 argue bills are too high. Some of them say the commission will give Georgia Power a free pass if its approves the freeze.
Blackman says the company should agree to extend the rate freeze to five years “if they really want to be serious about addressing high power costs in Georgia.”
Muns, who founded a construction company and previously served on the Columbia County school board, is among candidates who say the commission should lower the financial return that Georgia Power is allowed to earn on money it has invested in power plants and transmission lines. That rate of return drives the $2.5 billion in profit that Georgia Power contributed last year to its parent, Atlanta-based Southern Co.
Jones, who worked for California’s utility regulator, a phone company and Microsoft, called the rate freeze “atrocious” saying it props up Georgia Power’s rate of return.
“I feel the commission is not doing enough deep scrutiny of the operating expenses and of the financials of the company,” Jones said.
Hubbard, a green energy advocate, said it would be cheaper to shift toward solar power stored by batteries, instead of building more natural gas plants.
“Renewables, battery storage, some of these other solutions, are the fiscally conservative, least cost, most economical options,” Hubbard said.
Waites, a former state House member and former Atlanta City Council member, said she’s not an energy expert.
“But I am someone that just like you works hard, and at the end of the day, I just want to get a fair return in terms of what my cost is in terms of what I am paying,” she said at a recent candidate forum.
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