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Georgia energy workers donate thousands to GOP regulators
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Craig Nelson, The Current
Dozens of executives and employees of Georgia’s largest energy utilities have contributed at least $77,000 to the two Republicans running for reelection to the Public Service Commission, the state body charged with regulating them, according to filings with the state ethics commission.
Commissioner Fitz Johnson’s campaign committee has received at least $45,110 — almost a quarter of his campaign war chest — since September 2021 from individuals working for energy utilities, according to those documents. They include 40 donations from people working for Southern Company and its subsidiaries including Georgia Power, Southern Company Gas and Atlanta Gas Light, as well as 22 donations from Gas South employees.
Commissioner Tim Echols’ campaign, meanwhile, has received at least $32,475 from individuals at the same Southern Company firms and Gas South since October 2021, according to the documents. These 51 contributions total just over 6% of his campaign war chest.
This financial support highlights a core theme for voters ahead of Tuesday’s election — whether the current five-member commission has favored the corporate interests over consumers who are struggling to afford basic services, including their energy bills.
Campaign financial documents show that no one identified with the regulated utility companies has donated to the Democrats on the ballot Tuesday: Peter Hubbard, who is challenging Johnson for the District 2 seat on the PSC, and Alicia Johnson, Echols’ opponent for the commission’s District 3 seat.
The contributions to Johnson and Echols are not illegal. Under Georgia law, no regulated utility company can give money directly to the PSC or to a candidate for the PSC because that is “seen as too direct a conflict,” said Daniel Tait, research and communications director for the Energy and Policy Institute, a nonprofit utility watchdog organization.
However, individuals who work for utility companies can donate “in support of a particular ideology or position” or “to get something from” the regulator or elected official,” Tait said.
A spokeswoman for Fitz Johnson’s campaign said the candidate has prioritized keeping energy rates in Georgia below the national average. “Johnson has prioritized Georgia’s families and job creators,” Carmen Bergman said.
Echols said Democratic-leaning political action committees have infused more money into the PSC elections than he has raised in the last 15 years. “I made the decision this campaign cycle to take all legal contributions because I knew my opponents would have the backing of well-funded groups,” he said.
Ahead of the Nov. 3 vote, Echols has the largest campaign war chest of the four candidates, with more than $470,000, followed by Hubbard ($229,641), Fitz Johnson ($185,102) and Alicia Johnson ($70,600), according to documents filed with Georgia’s ethics commission.
Alicia Johnson, a Savannah native, has received mostly small-dollar donations, as well as contributions from two Washington-based political action committees — $8,400 from the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and $5,000 from Climate Action PAC.
State and national party organizations, as well as out of state PACS, have reportedly spent millions on the Georgia PSC race. However, calculating total contributions won’t be possible before the election, as the next deadline for filing spending reports is not until the end of the year.
Added boost
In addition to the support from individual utility executives, Echols and Fitz Johnson have received funds from the Atlanta law firm that frequently represents Georgia Power and Southern Company in regulatory matters pending before the PSC and other state agencies, as well as the state legislature.
Since September 2023, lawyers at Troutman Pepper Locke, along with the firm’s political action committee, have made more than $87,000 in campaign contributions to the two incumbent Republicans, donating $44,800 to Johnson and and $43,050 to Echols.
Among the contributors are two partners who have represented Georgia Power in rate cases before the PSC. Brandon Marzo heads Troutman Pepper’s Energy Regulatory Practice Group and Steven Hewitson who “focuses on state regulation of electric utilities,” according to the firm’s website.
The two men gave approximately $14,000 to the two Republicans earlier in the year, and then another $15,000 in the last two weeks, after Gov. Brian Kemp and other top GOP officials raised alarms over public opinion polls indicating the PSC races were close.
‘Favorable decision-making’
The PSC, whose members are paid about $131,000-a-year, regulates the rates charged and the services provided by most intrastate, investor-owned electric, telecommunications, and natural gas utilities. It also regulates railroads.
Since May 2022, Ben Tarbutton III, president of Sandersville Railroad, has donated $39,300 dollars to Johnson’s and Echols’ campaign committees, $16,000 of it since late July. His 9-mile line hauls mostly kaolin bound for the Port of Savannah.
David Waverly, communications director for Open Secrets, a Washington D.C.-based research group that tracks money in politics, said individuals or groups that contribute to a campaign may embrace the candidate or not have a political interest in that candidate at all. What they hope, he said, is that their money “translates into favorable legislative or regulatory decision-making down the road.”
For Tarbutton, who is also a member of the Georgia Ports Authority’s board of directors, that has previously proved true.
In September 2024, Tarbutton asked the PSC to approve his railroad’s request to use eminent domain in Hancock County, one of the state’s poorest counties, to build a new rail spur to serve private businesses. He argued that approval was in the public interest.
Johnson, Echols and the PSC’s three other commissioners agreed.
Incomplete picture
Beyond individual donations, the PSC candidates are also benefiting from spending by so-called non-candidate committees and from state and national political party organizations, though the scope of that support is not completely known.
The Democratic National Committee and the Association of State Democratic Committees have raised more than $100,000 for Georgia’s state party apparatus and the candidates to use on door-knocking and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The Georgia Conservation Voters Action Fund, which reportedly said earlier this month it would spend $2.2 million to defeat Echols and Johnson, is distributing flyers with the headline, “Georgians can’t afford to keep Tim and Fitz on the PSC.”
Similarly, the Georgia GOP is waging a digital campaign that includes a poster of New York City mayoral candidate and Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani flanked by Hubbard and Alicia Johnson against the background of a hammer-and-sickle. The ad exhorts voters: “Don’t let radicals control your utilities!”
A fuller picture of last-minute campaign donations and spending will be clearer after the election, when candidates submit year-end reports to the state ethics commission.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Current.
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