Democrats Just Regained a Say in Arizona’s Power Bills
The blue wave has officially reached the Arizona down ballot. Though two Democratic wins in the Arizona Corporation Commissioner race might not drum up the same national coverage as, say, flipping a Senate seat in South Carolina, the election of Clara Pratte and Jonathon Hill to the five-seat commission could have major energy implications in a state that already saw renewables champions take over the state’s largest utility earlier this year. (With close margins in slow-to-count Arizona, the ACC race wasn’t officially called until Thursday evening, when both Republicans conceded.) Arizona is one of 10 states that elects its utility commissioners, with the ACC regulating private water, gas, and electric companies in the state. That includes overseeing Arizona Public Service and Tucson Electric Power, where bills have increased 52% and 10%, respectively, over the past five years, per Heatmap’s data . (The publicly owned Salt River Project, which serves much of the Phoenix area, operates largely without ACC oversight.) The ACC has been wholly in Republican hands since 2024; during that time, the body repealed Arizona’s Electric Efficiency Standards, which had incentivized utilities to pursue energy efficiency programs, as well as the state’s Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff, which supported
