Fresh Loaf

Thurbert lays down the law

A month ago, the Georgia Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to elect Commissioner Stan Wise as board chairman for a two-year term, despite the fact that state law stipulates that the chairmanship is not an elected position. In fact, the law mandates that the chairman’s seat is supposed to rotate among PSC members annually.

Chuck Eaton, one of the two commissioners who voted against the move asked state Attorney General Thurbert Baker for a legal opinion on the maneuver. This morning, he issued a six-page opinion filled with legalese, footnotes and Whereases. You can read the PDF here. But we’ll offer a paraphrased version: “That shit was illegal as hell.”

Here’s Baker’s own executive summary:

Code section 46-2-5 is constitutional; the Commission does not have the authority to declare the statute unconstitutional; the Commission is not free to disregard the statute; the Commission may not select a chairman for a two-year term; and a chairman whose term commences on July 1, 2009, may serve beyond Jan. 16, 2010, only if there are no other commissioners eligible to serve as chairman.

In other words, the vote by the PSC was in direct conflict with existing state law. But then, they already knew this because they’d tried to get the law changed!

What happens now? I can’t imagine the PSC attempting to ignore the AG’s advice, but as we’ve seen, stranger things have happened.

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There must be something in the ventilation system over at the Public Service Commission that’s making those folks more than usually loopy. Yesterday, the PSC voted 3-2 to elect Commissioner Stan Wise as board chairman for a two-year term. There’s just one problem with this maneuver: It’s illegal as hell.

Bobby Baker

And it’s not as if PSC members can claim to be unaware of the law that mandates how chairmen are selected, because they tried to get the law changed during the recent General Assembly. That attempt failed; it appears this is their back-up plan.

Since 1992, Georgia law has called for the PSC chairmanship to rotate on an annual basis. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Don Parsons, R-Marietta, (but reportedly written by newly elected Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald) would have allowed the board to elect its own chairman for a three-year term. The bill passed the House, but stalled in the Senate.

As reported by the increasingly invaluable Atlanta Unfiltered, current PSC Chairman Doug Everett announced Monday that he was resigning from that post as of July 1. He then made a motion nominating Wise as chairman for the next two years, with McDonald to serve as vice-chairman. The motion passed 3-2, with members Chuck Eaton and Bobby Baker voting against it. Eaton has written a letter asking Attorney General Thurbert Baker to weigh in on the matter.

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