Learn more and donate to Dr. Alicia Johnson for Public Service Commissioner at https://www.alicia4georgia.com/
This summer, the average Georgia Power customer paid $60 more than they did three years ago—a surge of nearly 40%. You can thank Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) for approving the rate increase—the sixth time it did so since 2022. But if you think you can’t do anything about it, you’re wrong. Ask Dr. Alicia Johnson, the Democrat who’s vying for the seat currently held by Republican Tim Echols.
“In the last two years, all five commissioners voted to raise our rates,” the Savannah-raised Johnson said. “Our PSC has been more of a rubber stamp than a regulator—less values driven, less people centered, more about utility profits. Those are important things for people to know and understand.”
Georgians will head to the polls on Nov. 4, with early voting already underway for one of the most consequential elections affecting everyday life for most residents. And while the ballots in this off-year election will include local races for school boards, municipal governments, local ballot measures and some special races, all electors will have the chance to vote Echols and fellow Republican Commissioner Fitz Johnson out and Johnson (no relation to Fitz Johnson) and fellow Democrat Peter Hubbard in.
Echols has not had kind words to say about his challenger. In public he has referred to her as a Black female, DEI activist and socialist who wants to bring wokeness to the PSC.
“That’s what we’re dealing with,” she said. “Not having a record to stand on, he is stooping to the low road and trying to make this an election based on race. We’re hearing racist dog whistles.” She has criticized both Republicans for taking contributions from Georgia Power.
Most people familiar with the PSC know its connection to Georgia Power, but it also regulates wholesale gas; Atlanta Gas Light, which serves the entire Southeast; railroads; telecommunications and broadband internet; and pipeline safety. Each member represents a district, but all voters statewide vote for all commissioners.
The PSC, which currently consists of all Republicans, makes binding decisions that affect everyone through their utility bills, energy mix and infrastructure investments across the state. It regulates how much residents pay and how the power is generated; sets policy; and determines if the utility companies provide consumer protections. But while the PSC makes decisions that affect every Georgia Power customer, none of the five commissioners is a customer of the company. Instead, they all live in electric membership corporations (EMCs), cooperatives that provide power to their members. The state has 41 EMCs serving a little more than 4 million people but about 73% of the state’s land area, mostly rural. Because they are nonprofits, EMC rates are about 50% lower than Georgia Power.
“We have commissioners who are not Georgia Power customers and who are paying super low rates while they’re voting on our rates,” said Patty Durand, founder of Cool Planet Solutions and Georgians for Affordable Energy. Durand tried to oust Echols in the 2022 PSC election, but the election was cancelled following a legal challenge to how the state holds elections for the district seats.
“Other states do not have commissioners who are not utility customers representing people who are customers,” Durand said. “It was tolerated here because until two years ago, nobody knew it. Now that Georgia Power customers know they aren’t represented on the commission, I think voters will reject the incumbents. Alicia and Peter are both Georgia Power customers, so we will get desperately needed representation when they win.”
Durand thinks Johnson, with her experience and leadership background, would make a great commissioner. “Alicia will have to climb a learning curve, but she has shown herself capable of anything she wants to do. I think it’s also important that, in addition to her doctorate and 30 years of leadership, she’s in Savannah. We don’t have anyone representing that part of the state. The commission is very Atlanta centric, but they should be going to other parts of the state so those citizens can participate.”
Johnson has spent the majority of her career in public policy and community development. She was the strategic planner and grant writer for her local school district and a public information officer for the district attorney. Prior to becoming a full-time consultant, she served as senior director of Medicaid, marketing and member services for a managed care company, where she helped to build programming and outreach across the state for more than 600,000 Medicaid beneficiaries to ensure they had accessible, quality healthcare and support to overcome barriers. “The social determinants of health,” she said.
As a southern leader of the National League of Cities, she worked with cities on economic mobility and development to expand on workforce development. She also worked with 9 to 5 Georgia, which started in 1980 to improve working conditions in Atlanta; the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute; and other organizations that serve underserved communities.
“Serving the underserved is just good public policy, which isn’t red or blue. It’s people centered.”
Johnson said she’s interested in solutions, not politics. “But I recognize politics are connected to policy, and policy is connected to our pocketbooks and the way we live our lives. Policy translates in real time and affects us every day. As I work in underserved communities, one of the things that strikes me most is people don’t often realize why a certain barrier exists; they just keep bumping into it. It’s usually connected to somebody at a table where they don’t get to sit. Policies have tended to be top down, not empowering. There are real roadblocks to people gaining economic mobility and being actualized in their own lives. We have this idea of welfare moms and lazy people just sitting around twiddling their thumbs, and that’s not accurate. The data doesn’t show that. The working poor make up 43% of Georgia’s families. When you get down into rural areas, that jumps to 52%. In urban cross sections, like in the city I live in or in Atlanta, child poverty rates skyrocket to 85 percent, and the people in the homes are working! And yet their energy costs burden them, their rent costs burden them, and they’re uninsured. They can’t get ahead.
“We have a commission that does not understand the context of working families and makes decisions in a vacuum.”
Johnson believes electricity is a necessity, not a privilege. “People don’t know they have a choice and can have that magic mix of good public policy where they’re uplifted.
“We have not seen accountability or transparency,” she continued. “People don’t know they can show up at meetings and talk to commissioners. This election gives them an opportunity to have a voice.
“Tim Echols doesn’t care how his policies impact working families. Georgians deserve a commission that works for them and not for the utilities.”
