There is a runoff election for Public Service Commission District 1 this month, and it seems like no one is even aware of it.  One can drive for many miles through the district and never see a single sign.  Granted, PSC is not as exciting or glamorous as the legislature or gubernatorial elections, but what people often fail to realize is that it is every bit as important and probably more so than any other elected office.  For an agency that most people don’t pay any attention to until they have problems getting their water hooked up, the PSC wields enormous power that has a direct effect on everyone’s wallet.  There is a real risk that most of the electorate will go into the voting booth without knowing much, if anything about the two candidates in this race.  That is a shame, because there is a HUGE difference between them.

The District 1 seat is currently held by Eric Skrmetta, who has been a consistent and reliable conservative voice on the PSC since he was first elected to that position in 2008.  He has served his full three terms and is now on his way out.  District 1 includes all or parts of 10 parishes (Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Charles, St. Tammany, Washington, Tangipahoa, Livingston, and St. Helena).  It covers a very large and diverse geographic area.

There are two (supposedly) Republican candidates in the runoff, both from Jefferson Parish.  The first is John Young, who served on the Jefferson Parish Council and then as Parish President.  He was elected as Parish President following the 2010 resignation of the prior president during a wide-ranging federal investigation.  Young seems to have done a good job of restoring integrity to the parish, and in the process attracted the anger of the local landfill owners.  They reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on negative mailers against him when he ran for re-election.  For most regular people, that will actually speak well of Young.  Prior to that, he served as a prosecutor, so he has experience in all three branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial).

Young also served as parish president during several hurricane recoveries.  That experience of dealing with utility companies in the New Orleans area during multiple post-storm recoveries and the knowledge of what is needed to make our utilities more resilient in the face of future storms should serve as a solid backdrop of experience that will be of great benefit on the PSC.  It is unlikely that any other PSC member can boast of that type of experience.  And with his prosecutorial experience, he should understand how to hold people accountable.

And then we have his opponent.  State Representative Stephanie Hilferty is also a registered Republican from Jefferson Parish.  But the similarities between the two stop there.  Hilferty has been in the state legislature for a decade or so, and in that time, she has voted against almost every major conservative reform.  The term RINO is really overused and often thrown around anytime a Republican makes a single bad vote.  That is not the case here.  The term RINO was coined with people like Representative Hilferty in mind.  There are even Democrats in the legislature that are more conservative than she is.

A short list of her transgressions includes voting against the library bills that were passed to move sexually oriented books out of the children’s sections (2024 HB974).  She voted against requiring teachers to get parental consent before letting a student change their pronouns (2016 HB402, 837, 2022 HB837, 2023 HB81 & 466).  She voted against a bill banning teachers from teaching LGBTQT issues to schoolchildren (2023 HB466).  She voted against constitutional carry (2024 SB1).  She voted with the budget busters in 2023 when only a few members of the Freedom Caucus were willing to stand against then-Speaker Clay Schexnayder (Has he found that missing cypress board yet?) when the legislature blew through the constitutional spending cap in the final minutes of the legislative session (2023 SCR3).  And she voted in support of John Bel Edwards’ 2016 tax increase (2016 HB62 – Remember the “temporary” sales tax that finally became permanent last year?).

Those are only a few examples of the long record of bad, liberal votes that Rep. Hilferty has cast in her legislative career.  One might argue that those issues have nothing to do with the PSC, and that is fair.  But it speaks to who Hilferty is and what she believes.  And a tax and spend, big government liberal mindset is the last thing that Louisiana needs on the PSC.

Going from 1 of 105 members in the legislature to 1 of 5 members on the PSC would be considered a promotion by most people.  Representative Hilferty’s record in the legislature is not one that calls for her to be promoted.  She would be more likely to side with Davante Lewis than with the Republicans on the commission, and that would simply be bad for our state.  With only three votes needed to pass a bad policy that affects the daily lives of everyone in this state, Louisiana simply can’t afford to put someone with her record on the PSC.  And once someone is elected to the PSC, they become firmly entrenched and it becomes very hard to get them off.  In fact, over the last 50 years (not counting Damon Baldone’s defeat by Craig Greene, as he was a temporary appointment by John Bel Edwards, and was never elected to the position) an incumbent has only lost a PSC race once.  If Hilferty is elected, we will likely be stuck with her for a long time.

Let’s not screw this up, Louisiana.  We literally can’t afford to.