During the last hour of primary candidate qualifying, lifelong Georgian and Republican attorney Carolyn Roddy joined two other GOP candidates and three Democrats to run for the Public Service Commission (PSC) seat that incumbent Tricia Pridemore leaves at the end of her term. In another PSC contest, two Republicans are vying to get their party’s nomination to face Democrat Commissioner Peter Hubbard. James Magazine Online will cover that second race later this week.
Carolyn Roddy
The five-member PSC oversees Georgia utilities, including electricity, telecommunications and natural gas. It especially holds sway over Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility and has final approval over utility rate hikes. The PSC also decides who pays for infrastructure projects and cleanup costs— customers or utility companies.
Roddy, who resides in Cobb County with her family, is an experienced lawyer who has represented utilities before state and federal commissions, including the Georgia PSC. She has worked as a Trump administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service and once served as an aide to former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Roddy says she stands for “protecting ratepayers from excessive rate increases and making energy costs affordable.” “Encouraging data centers and large users to procure their own power rather than passing costs to ratepayers” is also part of her platform.
Josh Tolbert, a licensed engineer and small business owner Bobby Mehan are Republicans running against Roddy. Tolbert spent his career building all types of engineering plants and touts his technical background and being a “nerd” as a reason for voting for him. The Cobb Countian ran for the state Senate last November but was defeated.
Mehan, a Bremen resident, pledges to “make power bills affordable, maintain reliable energy and ensure our utilities keep pace with Georgia’s growing economy.” He also says he’ll “apply rigorous cost-benefit analysis before rate payers pay a dime.”
On the Democrats’ side, the candidates are Craig Cupid, Shelia Edwards and Angelia Pressley. James Magazine Online will report on their candidacies in the future.
It is confusing to some voters but these PSC candidates must live in a district— in this case, District 5— but they are voted on statewide. The party primary elections are held on May 19th and early voting starts on Monday, April 27th.
