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A group of state lawmakers wants to infuse a heavy dose of populism into regulating utilities and ensuring consumers have reliable, affordable gas and electric service by making the statewide ballot even longer by adding elections for the Michigan Public Service Commission.
A package of legislation rolled out this week calls for amending the Michigan Constitution to have voters select the members of the Public Service Commission. Right now, the three commission members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. There has to be at least one member of both major political parties. The legislation would also expand the commission to five members.
This package is a response to complaints about rate hikes and the PSC’s handling of permits for data centers, solar panel and wind farms in rural areas, and extended gas and electric outages.
“The goal of the proposal is to give Michigan residents a direct voice in who serves on that commission,” state Representative Reggie Miller (D-Van Buren Township) told Rick. “They make important decisions about utility rates, data centers, large-scale projects, infrastructure, and they want representation, not appointed positions. This is what residents have told me.”
Being on the Public Service Commission is a big job. The commissioners (with a lot of staff assistance) are expected to make expert decisions on everything from the rates charged by publicly traded companies to trimming trees so branches don’t tumble down on wires during ice storms. All to ensure that heat and lights stay on at an affordable cost to consumers and businesses.
Under the provisions of the legislative package, commission candidates would be selected by delegates to state party conventions, although they would appear on the nonpartisan section of the November general election ballot. It essentially matches the unique and complicated system for selecting Michigan Supreme Court candidates and how they appear on the ballot.
Only one state out of 50 selects its high court candidates by choosing them at party conventions and then putting them on the ballot without naming their party affiliation – a process so rare it is known as “the Michigan method.” It’s worth mentioning that only 10 U.S. states have elected public service commissions.
If the goal is to make utility regulation less political, well, there are few things more political than political conventions where party faithful decide who goes on the ballot. The majority of convention nominations are for positions on university boards and the Michigan State Board of Education, and the candidates are typically insiders largely unknown to the wider public.
“There’s a reason why we use elected boards as a measure of pure partisanship,” political consultant Adrian Hemond told Rick. “You get these nominations for service to the party.”
Now this proposal is very conceptual, would not make any changes to this year’s ballot, and has little chance of being adopted in the remaining 10 months of this legislative session. The plan would require bipartisan buy-in because it would take supermajorities in the House and the Senate to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot for voters to approve.
Republican House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) has been critical of the commission, but said this week the answer is not electing its members, but narrowing its powers.
“The track that I’m working on is just to take away a lot of this authority away from the Public Service Commission, take away their ability to force the local communities to take the data centers, the windmills, the solar panels and then force them to lower rates,” he told Rick.
The PSC did not comment specifically on the legislation, but spokesman Matt Helms shared a statement: “The Commission is focused on keeping up recent momentum on significant improvements in electric reliability and keeping customer costs in check and will decline further comment.”
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What we’re talking about at the dinner table
Proof of Citizenship: Signatures have been turned in proposing an amendment to the Michigan constitution requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. “The measure, from the group Americans for Citizen Voting, would require all Michiganders to show proof of citizenship while registering to vote. The current system has registrants check a box affirming citizenship. Making a false affirmation carries the threat of a felony perjury charge. The proposal would also require people to show a photo ID either at polls or within six days of voting to have their vote counted. To qualify for the ballot, the campaign needed to collect 446,198 valid signatures. The campaign says it collected more than 750,000,” Michigan Public Radio Network’s Colin Jackson reports. We recently spoke with VoteBeat’s Hayley Harding on the podcast about what the ACV proposal would do, why supporters say it’s necessary, and why opponents warn it could disenfranchise eligible voters who don’t have ready access to documents like birth certificates.
Rolls challenge declined: The U.S. Supreme Court is letting stand the decisions of two lower courts, which dismissed a challenge to how Michigan handles the removal of dead voters from its rolls. “In an unsigned order, the high court let stand two lower-court decisions that dismissed a lawsuit filed by the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation claiming Michigan was violating the National Voter Registration Act by having almost 26,000 deceased voters still on the state's lists of qualified voters. The lawsuit was one of several filed by conservative legal groups seeking to call into question how elections are conducted, and who is eligible to vote, in battleground states. But both a federal district court judge and a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, whose office oversees elections in the state, that Michigan was adequately maintaining voter rolls,” Michigan Public’s Brett Dahlberg reports.
Scholten opponent: A well-known West Michigan TV meteorologist announced she's running for Congress in West Michigan. “Terri DeBoer says she’s running as a Republican for the 3rd Congressional District, representing an area that includes Grand Rapids and much of its surrounding metro area. DeBoer has delivered local weather reports in West Michigan for more than 30 years, most recently at Fox17, where she departed just last month. Her face still appears on ads for the news station on local buses. She filed a statement of candidacy on Wednesday. DeBoer will face incumbent Democrat Hillary Scholten in November. Scholten is the first democrat to represent Grand Rapids in Congress in nearly half a century, and the first woman,” Michigan Public’s Dustin Dwyer reports.
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Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
