State PSC members could avoid voters for years as meter runs on Georgia Power rate hikes

A Georgia environmental organization is pushing against plans to postpone state utility regulator elections until 2025, arguing that further delay denies the rights of several million Georgia Power customers to elect members to a board that has approved several company proposals that have increased the financial burden on ratepayers.

A former state Public Service Commission candidate and a Georgia Conservation Voters representative both said they are concerned that a pending case is being used as an excuse by the secretary of state to cancel elections this fall and for legislators to set a new calendar that would essentially extend current six-year terms by a couple of more years.

Brionté McCorkle, executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters, is one of the four individual plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state contends that conducting statewide elections for the five-member PSC disenfranchises Black voters. They are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in November that would allow the state to continue holding at-large statewide elections for the five districts.