Next up in this “Who’s on Your Ballot?” series is the Public Service Commission race. There are 4 candidates running for a seat on the Public Service Commission:
- Joseph Brush
- Tim Echols
- John Douglas
- Jeff May
Before I sat down to write this post, I had no idea about any of the candidates in this race. It’s not one of the highly publicized races in the statewide elections, so even though I try to keep current on what’s going on, this is one that I really knew nothing about.
I found video footage of the Atlanta Press Club debate, which I hoped would help me decide on one of the candidates. A lot of what they say sounds the same, really. They’re all Republicans in a Republican primary election discussing energy, so you can imagine they’d all sound a lot alike.
One question, however, stood out to me. I didn’t initially see how it applied to the PSC, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense as a valid question of the candidates. It was a yes/no question of whether we should repeal the 17th Amendment.
(The 17th Amendment is the one that changed U.S. Senate elections so that senators are elected by states’ citizens rather than by the states’ legislatures. The 17th Amendment is part of the reason the Senate is full of such an awful bunch of politicians, and it needs to be repealed. But that’s a different discussion for a different day.)
Brush answered first and said no. Douglas declined to answer saying it wasn’t relevant to the PSC. Echols said no. Then May said yes.
In a debate where the four candidates sound very, very much alike, May’s support of repealing the 17th Amendment did a lot to set him apart from the crowd; and it made the difference for me. I’ll be voting for Jeff May for PSC on July 20.
