By Howard Fischer
Twitter: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Calling it a better alternative to direct election, a House panel voted Thursday to let the governor name the state’s five utility regulators.

Rep. Ben Toma, R-Peoria, told members of the Commerce Committee the record shows that the current system of direct election leads to situations where candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission have been helped financially by those who have issues before the panel. He said that includes both the utilities, citing the spending in prior elections by Arizona Public Service, but also other interests like those hoping to elect commissioners who will require the greater use of solar.

Mr. Toma acknowledged that the question of direct appointment of regulators went to the ballot once before, back in 1984,

“It didn’t quite get across the line,” he said, losing by a 2-1 margin. “I just thought it was the right time to bring it back up again.”

Rep. Isela Blanc, D-Tempe, did not dispute that the commission has become embroiled in controversy about the role of outside interests in helping to select utility regulators of their choice.

But she said Mr. Toma is focused on the wrong problem. Ms. Blanc said the issue is keeping utilities from spending money to get their own regulators elected.

She said the latest questioning of the integrity of the commission started in 2014 when APS spent $10.7 million to ensure that the five-member commission remained an all-Republican affair.

But it took nearly five years for the state’s largest electric utility to divulge that information. And they did that only after the 2018 election resulted in a majority on the commission who demanded disclosure.

APS continued its spending in 2016, this time above board,with $4.2 million to defeat the Democrat candidates.

There was no spending on the 2018 race. And last year, the new company CEO vowed to stop putting money into future commission rates.

But there was fallout from all that, Ms. Blanc said.

“Voters started paying attention,” she said. In fact, Ms. Blanc said, that’s the reason that there is now a Democrat on the panel in a state with a Republican voter edge.

“They started to exercise their right to vote,”she said. “They started to understand that money was playing a huge in manipulating to some degree voters out there.”

Rep. Jennifer Jermaine, D-Chandler, said that was borne out with the results of the 2018 election for the commission, with more than a million votes cast for each candidate.

“So to say that the public is not interested in this office is not true,” she said.

Mr. Toma’s HCR 2014, if approved by voters in November, would have commissioners appointed by the governor with the consent of the Senate. The argument is that the main role of the commission is not to set policy but instead to determine a fair rate of return for monopoly utilities and to set the rates that each class of customer has to pay.

“There’s still accountability,” Mr. Toma said. “If it’s a governor appointment, the governor will be held responsible for the people they appoint, just like every other position the governor appoints.”

It does contain a provision spelling out that no more than three members of the panel could be from the same party. But nothing requires a governor to actually appoint the other two from the opposing party, leaving the door open for naming people who are listed as political independents but who may actually have the same political leanings as the governor.

Mr. Toma’s argument that controversy at the commission is a reason to remove direct election did not convince Sandy Bahr, lobbyist for the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club.

“Any body of government, whether it’s appointed or elected, can be subject to corruption and the abuse of power,” she said.

“It is only a strong checks and balances, including a check provided by the people, that limits that.”

Ms. Bahr also told lawmakers there have been claims of corruption by state lawmakers.

“But we do not propose appointing legislators as a solution,” she said.

There actually is a proposal to keep utility money out of commission races. But House Speaker Rusty Bowers never assigned the proposal by Rep. Kristen Engel, D-Tucson, to a committee for a hearing.

And Mr. Toma said he doubts that such a measure would withstand legal scrutiny, with the U.S. Supreme Court having declared that money is equivalent to speech and that corporations cannot be barred from using their money to influence elections.

The measure now goes to the full House.

If it gets approved there and in the Senate it would go on the November ballot, giving voters the last word.

Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, has proposed a similar measure, but without any limits on who the governor could appoint.

But his SCR 1048 did not get out of the Senate Commerce Committee after Sen. David Farnsworth, R-Mesa, who is running for the commission this year, voted with Democrats to quash that proposal.