Energy bills keep rising. These candidates in Georgia say they can help.

Ten candidates are vying for two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission in the May 19 primary. Early voting is already underway.

The commission oversees utilities, including telecommunications, natural gas, and electricity, and has final say over how Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, makes energy and what it charges customers. This gives commissioners substantial power over Georgians’ energy bills and the state’s climate future, because burning fossil fuels to make electricity is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. By the PSC’s own description, “very few governmental agencies have as much impact on peoples’ lives as the PSC.” 

Still, elections for the commission have rarely received much attention. That changed last year. Amid frustration over rising energy bills, voters overwhelmingly ousted two Republican incumbents, sending Democrats to the five-member commission for the first time in 20 years. With two seats up for election again this year, majority control of the commission is at stake. 

Most candidates, regardless of party, broadly agree on the issues commanding the most attention: that energy bills should be kept in check and that the commission should do more to protect ordinary customers from the costs of powering data centers. But they bring different backgrounds and approaches to the job.

District 3

The seat for District 3, which encompasses the metro Atlanta counties of Clayton, Dekalb, and Fulton, was on last year’s ballot, but only for a one-year term. Democrat Peter Hubbard won that election and is now running for reelection as the incumbent. Hubbard told Grist he’s running for reelection because he needs more time to enact changes like expanding renewable energy and ensuring Georgia Power is getting the most out of existing resources before building expensive new ones. A full six-year term, he said, would include the “big, meaty decisions” of Georgia Power’s long-term resource plan and rate case. Hubbard said he wants to take an active role in shaping those plans, rather than reacting to what the utility proposes.

“There’s just a baseline to acting as a shield to imprudent spending. But I also think that a proactive commissioner can find even lower-cost solutions than what otherwise would be provided,” he said.

Republican Fitz Johnson, who had been the incumbent last year, lost to Hubbard in 2025 and is running against him again. He told Grist at a campaign event that he’s “got some unfinished business.” While most other candidates in the race have said the commission should do more to shield ordinary customers from data center costs, Johnson said the commission has “100 percent, without doubt” protected them.

“When it comes to the data centers and the large loads, we put the ratepayers first,” he said. “We said we’re not going to put any burden on our ratepayers.”

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During his time on the commission, Johnson voted for the current rate freeze and the contract terms designed to ensure data centers pay for their own infrastructure, though critics argue those protections aren’t enough. He also voted in favor of Georgia Power bill increases that became the focus of last year’s election and for the utility’s multibillion-dollar expansion to serve rising demand coming mostly from data centers.

Another Republican, Brandon Martin, is running against Johnson for the party’s nomination. He did not respond to requests for an interview. According to his campaign website, Martin is a graduate of Georgia Tech and now works as a purchasing manager in a “multi-billion dollar industry.” His website stresses the importance of reliable energy for Georgia’s growing economy and calls for electricity generation that’s “flexible and as U.S.-centric as possible” in light of uncertain global fuel markets, though the site does not offer specifics.

District 5

District 5 covers a stretch of west Georgia from the Tennessee border south nearly to Columbus. Republican Tricia Pridemore has held the seat since 2018 and is running for U.S. Congress instead of seeking reelection. Three Democrats, three Republicans, and a Libertarian are all running to replace her.

All three Democrats stressed that their party’s majority on the commission would bolster support for renewable energy programs.

“Two commissioners can demand better analysis. Three can stop the rubber-stamping of utility requests,” said electrical engineer and lawyer Craig Cupid, one of the Democrats running in District 5. He grew up in a working-class family, he said, after his parents immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago to Augusta. “Every penny counted,” Cupid said. “I understand when a rate increase affects someone, particularly lower-income families.” Cupid also emphasized his technical background, saying it gives him the expertise to act as a “watchdog against monopoly utilities.” 

Democrat Shelia Edwards told Grist that she was inspired to run for a seat on the PSC after getting a power bill of nearly $500. Edwards could pay it, she said, though it was “painful.” “But what about the families that are struggling to keep a roof over their head, or food on the table or medicine?” she said. “How are they gonna afford this situation?”

That was in 2022. Edwards won the party’s District 3 primary that year and was preparing to face Fitz Johnson in the general election when it was canceled because of a voting-rights lawsuit. Edwards, who has worked on political campaigns and in local environmental advocacy, is running again in District 5.

The third Democrat on the ballot in District 5 is Angelia Pressley, who told Grist she’s running because of the PSC’s “dismissal” of the public’s environmental and cost concerns. “The public has to have more voice,” she said. “There has to be more balance at the commission between business concerns and public concerns.”

Pressley said if elected, she plans to host listening sessions around the state to hear Georgians’ concerns and educate them about the work of the commission. 

The Republican candidates all stressed the importance of reliable energy. They said they support affordable clean energy as part of the utility’s overall mix, but would not impose a renewable mandate.

Republican Bobby Mehan has spent most of his career in health care records technology and now works as a mediator. He said that work has taught him “to be open-minded and kind of take this all-the-above approach,” a philosophy he said is key to innovating the energy grid. In a debate hosted by the Atlanta Press Club, Mehan pledged that he would not vote for new rate hikes and pushed his opponents to do the same. 

“I’m willing to put my neck out there and say, ‘six years, not a single rate increase from Bobby Mehan,’” he said in the April debate.

When pressed on the feasibility of that promise, Mehan clarified that he meant he personally wouldn’t vote for rate hikes.

Carolyn Roddy is a regulatory lawyer who has worked for the Federal Communications Commission and on a rural electric service program in the first Trump administration. She is also running in the Republican primary for District 5 and told Grist her experience would help her keep utility costs in check.

“The Georgia Public Service Commission can do a better job of what they’re doing,” she said. “How dare you impose these kinds of rate increases when people’s family budgets are already stretched really thin?”

The commission, she said, should question and guide utilities but should not be either “a big impediment or a big rubber stamp” for their plans.

Republican Joshua Tolbert is an engineer who’s worked in several different types of power plants, a perspective he said is missing from the commission. Without specific technical expertise, Tolbert said, commissioners are less able to question and push back on proposals from utilities. That pushback is critical, he said, because Georgia Power is a monopoly, so the commission has to provide the kind of “consequences and feedback” that would normally come from free market competition.

The Libertarian party doesn’t have a primary, so the path to November’s election for Libertarian Thomas Blooming is different from the other candidates. He needs signatures from voters to appear on the ballot, though the party can collect those signatures for their slate of candidates as a whole.

Blooming is an electrical engineer who’s worked on data centers for Google and Facebook and now works for Utility Innovation Group, which builds microgrids with a focus on decarbonization and resilience. Blooming stressed that he’s not against data centers, but that problems come up when the grid can’t support them. More nuclear energy could be one route to serving data centers, he said. Blooming also highlighted the risks of relying too heavily on any one source of energy. Too much natural gas could drive up costs, he said, while overreliance on renewables could make the grid less reliable.

“You have to protect the ratepayers, but you also have to make decisions that keep Georgia Power healthy,” he said. “It doesn’t do anyone any good to just absolutely lock down on Georgia Power and then they’re not able to provide the power that they should.”

Rahul Bali contributed to this report.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Energy bills keep rising. These candidates in Georgia say they can help. on May 15, 2026.