Brionté McCorkle: We will never have a better chance than this: Why we must win this year’s elections for the Public Service Commission

Published 8:15 am Friday, June 6, 2025

This year’s elections for the Public Service Commission (PSC), a little-known board of five people who regulate our utilities and railroads, are must-win races for the future of Georgia. In a January AJC poll, voters ranked “Cost of Living” as our state’s most critical issue. Combined with “Jobs/Economy,” nearly half of all voters who make up to $99,000/year agreed: something has to be done for working families. People are paying unprecedented bills for the electricity they need to keep breathing machines on, food refrigerated, and air conditioning going during the hot Georgia summer. I know it can be challenging for people to pay attention to down-ballot races, but that’s what makes 2025 so unique. Due to a series of what I alleged are discriminatory and unconstitutional election laws passed or defended by the people in power now, the PSC elections are the only statewide elections on the ballot this year, and everybody gets to vote on them.

Here are the top three reasons why this year’s PSC elections are critical to the future of Georgia.

Reason 1 – Cost of Living

It’s expensive out here, y’all. No matter who someone voted for in 2024, or whether it was fair to lay the blame for the cost of living and inflation at the feet of Pres. Biden, the fact remains that Georgians have seen the cost of housing double in the last five years. An under-appreciated factor in that rise has been an incredible rise in our utility bills. Since 2023, the Public Service Commission has approved six rate increases on Georgia Power customers, for an average residential increase of $43 a month. That’s over $500 yearly, or more money than Governor Kemp’s now annual tax rebates. Here’s a Southern Environmental Law Center graphic showing these latest increases.

Want to know the worst part? They aren’t finished. These increases came from the PSC mismanaging a massive project – the Plant Vogtle nuclear reactors outside of Augusta. The construction went so far over budget and over time that it ended up costing almost $40 billion, and these bill increases pay for that. You can learn more about that epic saga at GCVEF’s website, gcvedfund.org.

Reason 2 – Voting Rights

OK, I lied. That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is that these bill increases were approved by Public Service Commissioners who didn’t have to face the voters for accountability. The Public Service Commission uses an old, Jim-Crow era style of election called “at-large voting.” Some municipalities have a couple of these “at-large” seats representing the entire city on top of the City Councilmember or County Commissioner who serves a district specifically.

Not the Public Service Commission, though. The PSC only has these at-large elections. That means that, while the candidates must live in the district they’re running for, they’re elected by the entire state. Historically, this has been used by a white majority to overwhelm the desires of a Black minority, and I challenged the law under the Voting Rights Act. A federal judge agreed, the Secretary of State appealed, and the Appellate Court said it was a matter of “states’ rights” and therefore they couldn’t change anything.

The State Legislature changed things, though. They delayed the elections until 2025 extending some Commissioners’ terms by years. The upshot is that several members of the PSC haven’t had to face the voters for almost a decade, and they’ve used that time to increase our bills, deprioritize safe, affordable energy, and double down in support of anything that Georgia Power says it wants. This year, though, there’s nowhere to hide, and we’re coming for those seats.

Reason 3 – We can do this

Finally, this year’s elections for the Public Service Commission are so crucial because they’re very winnable. It won’t be easy, but the path to victory is clear. If we stay grounded in our message of lower bills, safe, affordable energy like community solar, and holding public corporations like Southern Company accountable, we can reach Georgians turned off by partisan politics. We need to tell our friends and neighbors that this election is the best way to get some tangible relief on the cost of living front. There’s no one else on the ballot to make this race about anything else. It’s the only thing to vote for outside of municipal elections, and history is on our side.

Did you know that the first modern Republican elected to Constitutional office in Georgia was Bobby Baker in 1992? He ran on lowering bills and protecting people, and he won a seat on the Public Service Commission. Mark Twain famously remarked that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Let’s make it rhyme for justice.

Brionté McCorkle is the executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters and the Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund. She has spent her career training activists, advancing equity and inclusion in the environmental movement, and organizing grassroots voters. She formerly served as the director of engagement at EcoDistricts, and before that, as the Georgia Sierra Club assistant director.