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Georgia voters will choose a governor, a senator and a number of other key positions in Tuesday’s election. But two important races are off the ballot: seats on the state Public Service Commission. A lawsuit over the Voting Rights Act has halted the election – and could change the way Georgians vote for commissioners.
The Public Service Commission isn’t particularly flashy or high profile. And his election doesn’t generate the kind of endless TV commercials and daily headlines that a race for governor or senator does.
But the commission plays a part in the lives of most Georgians: it determines how much Georgia Power customers pay for electricity and where that electricity comes from. In fact, the five commissioners are considering a big rate hike.
“I think it’s bad, this is a bad time for us to try to raise rates,” Reverend Christopher Johnson told commissioners at a recent interest rate hearing. He said many people are still struggling with the pandemic. “Please, please, please, it is currently in the hands of the Public Service Commission not to increase tax rates for Georgians.”
Civil rights activists say the commission often doesn’t listen to voices like Johnson’s. They have sued the state over the way Public Service Commission elections work, arguing that they violate the Voting Rights Act. A federal judge agreed, ordering that races for the two seats up for election that year be removed from the vote.
A hybrid system
PSC elections are unusual: candidates must live in specific districts, but actual voting takes place nationwide.
“It’s sometimes seen as sort of a middle ground between a pure at-large system and a pure district system, so you have some spread of where your representatives are from,” said Charles Bullock, UGA’s politics professor. “So they’re spread a bit across the state. But then they are accountable to a wider circle.”
Some cities use a similar arrangement, Bullock said, but it’s not common at the state level.
Democrat Terry Coleman devised this system while he was Speaker of the Georgia House in the late 1990s. Back then, he said, lawmakers wanted to figure out “how we could make sure locations outside of metro areas were represented.”
Coleman said the statewide election makes sense for the unique work the commission is doing in regulating a statewide industry with a local impact.
But the lawsuit, filed by civil rights and environmental activists, argues that because the commissioners are elected by a statewide vote, they don’t really represent the people in their local district.
“Representation is important,” said plaintiff Brionté McCorkle, executive director of the Georgia Conservation Voters group. “The most important thing is to have at least one person on the commission who represents the unique and special needs of your district.”
She said the commission’s decisions have an outsized impact on black ratepayers. They tend to have lower incomes and face higher energy burdens – meaning a larger portion of their income goes towards utility bills.
“They have unique interests; they feel differently,” McCorkle said. “And they couldn’t have one person elected, not one person on a commission of five people who really intuitively got that, because they’re from that community and they live in that community and they organize and they network and they’re accountable to that community .”
The lawsuit says these hard-hit black taxpayers have no representation on the commission because the system waters down their votes. Expert testimony in the lawsuit showed that in past PSC elections, black voters have generally agreed on one candidate — and that candidate has consistently lost.
Only one black commissioner has ever been elected. Fitz Johnson, who is black, currently serves on the commission. He was appointed by Governor Brian Kemp after his predecessor resigned early. Johnson, whose district includes Atlanta, would have stood for election this year.
race or politics
Proponents of the current system simply don’t believe that race is the core issue.
“What the heck is the difference — whether it’s a black person or a white person or a brown person that represents them,” Coleman said. “That argument doesn’t work. And I get annoyed that they say it waters down black people’s voices, they’re poor white voices and poor other people.”
He pointed to the election of Senator Raphael Warnock, whom he says he supports, as proof that a black Democrat can win a statewide race in Georgia.
Adam Kincaid is executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which sided with the state in the lawsuit. He said the case was about politics, not race; all five current commissioners are Republicans.
“What they’re really arguing for is an opportunity for Democrats to have a district in the Atlanta metro area versus a minority candidate having an opportunity to be elected to the Public Service Commission,” Kincaid said.
This distinction is crucial. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits electoral discrimination based on race, while the US Supreme Court has ruled that re-election of constituencies resulting in a preference for one party is permissible.
partisan redux
So far, a judge has agreed with the plaintiffs. The state is attractive. If the current verdict stands, the legislature will have to develop a new system – which could lead to a special election.
The potential reshuffle of the PSC election comes at an interesting time in Georgia politics, Bullock said, as it would come with a Republican-controlled legislature at a time when the state has begun to lean toward Democrats.
“You could look at that and say, ‘Gee, let’s redraw the maps here to make it more Republican-friendly,'” he said.
The last time these elections changed, when Coleman was Speaker of the House, Democrats held the Statehouse, but the partisan winds had started to blow the other way.
“This came at a time when Democrats were desperate to hold on to their majority,” Bullock said. “That’s the kind of situation we’re seeing Republicans in now.”
When lawmakers end up drafting a new system, McCorkle said, she and her fellow plaintiffs will be watching the process closely.
“I think they have the power, the authority, the ability and, you know, the moral cover to do the right thing here and just let people elect commissioners who really represent them,” she said. “If they try to create a legal remedy, you know that’s a violation of the Voting Rights Act, yes, we’re definitely going to challenge that again.”
It all depends on the outcome of the appeals process. Oral hearings in the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled for next month.
And in the meantime, no public service commissioners face re-election before they vote on raising interest rates.
