The state of Georgia sued over Georgia Public Service Commission elections, allege illegal term extensions

Georgia WAND and Georgia Conservation Voters (GCV) teamed up to sue the state of Georgia over what they are calling illegal practices. 

The lawsuit alleges that “Georgia violated state constitution with HB-1312, which unilaterally blocked public service commissioner elections and allowed sitting members to rubberstamp controversial utility bill hikes, the highest in state history.”

The Public Service Commission (PSC), a body that exists in all 50 states, is designed to regulate public services that vary from state to state — generally telecommunications, energy and water. In Georgia, the Georgia Public Service Commission regulates telecommunications, electric, and natural gas services and has five commissioners. 

Term extensions 

The commission is supposed to be elected through statewide elections every six years — half of what this lawsuit is all about. Commissioners Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson, both Republicans, have retained their seats on the PSC even though their terms ended in 2022. 

In 2022, an ongoing lawsuit from Fulton County residents that alleged the statewide elections dilute the power of Black voters, and that the elections should instead be done district wide as each Georgia PSC official represents a district in Georgia. A federal judge agreed, and in August of 2022 Judge Steven Grimberg issued a ruling saying that the statewide elections violated the Voting Rights Act. 

Not long after, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this ruling, saying Georgia was free to design their elections as it pleased. This was followed by the Supreme Court siding with Grimberg’s decision, only for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to again rule that Georgia has autonomy on designing its elections a year later in November 2023.

Because of the ongoing lawsuits, the Georgia PSC was allowed to postpone their elections of that year. Two years later, a similar procedure followed — to the dismay of many.

Georgia legislators passed HB-1312 in April of this year, which allowed yet another postponement of Georgia PSC elections until 2025, effectively letting certain commissioners sit on their seats more than two years after their elected term had expired. The reasoning was similar to 2022: ongoing lawsuits and appeals. 

The idea that the Georgia PSC is diluting voting power by holding statewide elections is one with merit, advocates argue. While each commissioner represents a district and must reside in that district, voters outside their district get to vote the same as voters inside. Effectively, a candidate could win the most votes for the district that that candidate represents but lose due to voters outside their district picking another county.

The Atlanta Metropolitan area and other cities in the state like Columbus, Macon, Augusta and Savannah have more dense populations than the rest of the state and tend to lean more democratic, while also having high populations of Black residents. District-wide voting would allow these residents to more directly elect someone who appeals and caters to them rather than someone whose interests and electoral base reside outside of their district.

In this sense, the litigation for this important distinction of how the elections are designed is worth the wait for many. The postponements, however, have come during a time when key rulings on the energy future of the state have come into play, including rate hikes that many Georgians have been feeling.

Key rulings during the extended terms 

The Georgia PSC has approved multiple rate hikes in recent years. Kim Scott, executive director of environmental nonprofit Georgia WAND based in Atlanta, said that the lawsuit is about justice and accountability.

“[The Georgia PSC] is not upholding their mission which is safe, reliable and equitable power. These last four rate increases are the largest rate increases that our state has seen, and it has all been on the backs of ratepayers,” Scott said. “Georgians are concerned about rent, concerned about food, concerned about housing and they’re also concerned now about their power bills.”

Georgia WAND works statewide advocating for harm reduction, environmental and climate social justice for frontline communities in Southeast Georgia that are immediately impacted by the nuclear industry, along with energy burdened communities around the state. In addition to the lawsuit being a catalyst for action, Scott hopes the lawsuit brings awareness to what’s happening behind the scenes.

One of the larger rate hikes came in response to the latest nuclear reactors to come online in the world — Vogtle units 3 and 4, with the largest owner and operator being Georgia Power. The reactors were supposed to come online in 2016 and 2017, respectively, but instead came online in 2023 and 2024, respectively — seven years after schedule. Additionally, the project’s costs rose from the 14 billion initial projection to about $30 billion in total.

That cost was in large part pushed to ratepayers, in a span of years that has seen several rate increases for a variety of reasons.

In December 2022, a nearly 12 percent hike over three years was approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission, which went into effect in 2023 and will continue into 2025:

• Jan. 1, 2023: 2.6 percent
• Jan. 1, 2024: 4.5 percent
• Jan. 1, 2025: 4.5 percent 

Later in 2023, customers were met by another rate increase at an average of around $16 per customer in June to cover fuel costs — a 12.7 percent increase compared to the Fuel Cost Recovery Rates from FCR-25, before the increase, to FCR-26, according to Georgia Power. Just a few months later, in August, customers again saw a $5.42 increase — a 4.8 percent increase when comparing the average size of a Georgia Power bill before and after Unit 3 — as part of a majority of the costs being pushed onto customers for the delayed and over-budget nuclear plants at the approval of the PSC. 

In late 2023, the Georgia PSC approved yet another rate increase for when Vogtle Unit 4 kicks into gear, which officially went online in April of this year and raised rates by 6.2 percent starting May 1, 2024. Earlier this year, the second of the 2022 approved rates kicked into gear as well.

Scott argues these decisions were pivotal in the future of Georgia and were decided in part by commissions who have been granted extended seats and will continue to hold those seats until 2025 due to HB-1312.

In addition to fighting rate hikes and extended term seats, Scott said that she hopes the lawsuit helps bring awareness to ratepayers and elected officials about what’s going on behind the scenes.

Scott said that they are hopeful they will get some type of decision prior to the November presidential election so that they could get some of the elections on the ballot — something overdone since current commissioners’ seats became extended. 

She added that if the Georgia General Assembly didn’t allow legislation which would have created a consumer utility council to die ratepayers would have a louder voice when decisions like term extensions are made.

For now, they’ll have to go through the court system and await further rulings. 

“We’re still in this fight for all Georgians… they deserve it,” Scott said. “We deserve a commission that’s going to behold their mission and the people that supposedly elect them.”