Republicans win another Georgia race, make PSC unanimous

Published 11:19 am Wednesday, December 6, 2006

ATLANTA — Republican Chuck Eaton gave the Georgia GOP another victory Tuesday, defeating Democratic incumbent David Burgess in the only statewide runoff election to give his party all five seats on the Public Service Commission.

With 98 percent of the precincts reporting, Eaton had 111,768 votes, or about 52 percent, compared with 101,256 for Burgess, the lone Democrat on the board.

As the only statewide runoff election, it drew a light turnout. Chris Riggall, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said local races may have brought out more voters in some areas, but they were exceptions.

“Somebody told me that there’s no swing voters in runoffs. There’s just a matter of whether more Democrats are going to turn out than Republicans,” said Eaton, a real estate agent from Atlanta.

He said he fared well in some crucial counties, including Democratic strongholds of DeKalb and Fulton.

“We did better than expected in DeKalb,” Eaton said. “I expected to lose Fulton, but it was still neck and neck in Fulton. If you’re a Democrat, to win an election in this state, you have to win in Fulton big.”

On Nov. 7, Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue was re-elected by a wide margin, and the GOP won the lieutenant governor’s office and secretary of state for the first time, while the Republicans maintained the majorities they have held in both houses of the Legislature.

Burgess gained about 49 percent of the vote in the general election, but he needed at least 50 percent to avoid a runoff. Eaton got about 46 percent of the vote while Libertarian Paul MacGregor took roughly 5 percent.

During the campaign, Burgess stressed his regulatory experience. He spent 17 years as a PSC staffer before being appointed to a commission vacancy in 1999 by former Gov. Roy Barnes.

“There’s no substitute for experience,” Burgess said.

The first black to serve on the PSC, and the first former PSC staff member to hold a commission seat, Burgess was elected to a full six-year term in November 2000.

Eaton, a real estate agent from Atlanta, questioned the steady rise in natural gas prices since Burgess has been on the PSC board. The challenger benefited from increasing GOP dominance in Georgia.

Eaton was a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives in 2004 and is a vice chairman of the Fulton County Republican Party.

He said the GOP organization was the major reason he won.

“I think perhaps the gas prices had something to do with it, but in this runoff it was more nuts and bolts. The Republican party was just more organized,” Eaton said.

GOP spokesman Marty Klein said the election “shows the momentum the Republicans have built in Georgia continues to grow.”