In an Oct. 16 Instagram video from Jane Fonda, the actress and climate activist addressed the people of Georgia, urging them to vote two Democrats into an obscure agency known as the public service commission.

“Not many people have heard about it,” Fonda says to the camera. But “this is more important than you could imagine.”While the state’s most-watched races have been for governor and Senate, these two down-ballot contests are also top of mind for some Georgia Democrats trying to flip the state and for voters fed up with soaring power bills and new data centers.

The public service commission regulates investor-owned utilities — including gas and electric — most of which operate as monopolies in their regions. The agency has final say in how much residents pay on their utility bills.

For electricity providers like Georgia Power, the agency determines what grid upgrades companies make, how much of the costs they can pass to customers and how much profit they make from their investments. It also reviews the terms of agreements over power usage by data centers and oversees clean energy goals.

“They’re the Supreme Court justices of energy,” said Charles Hua, founder and executive director of the nonprofit PowerLines, whose mission is to demystify the utility regulatory system for consumers. Nationwide, about 200 people serve on public service commissions, which also go by names like public utility commission and corporate commission. Together, they’ll oversee $1.1 trillion in projected electric utility spending through 2029.

While most commissions are nonpartisan, those that are elected have in recent decades been Republican-run and incumbents have largely defended their seats against Democrats and challengers from their own party. But frustration over energy unaffordability has begun to reshape the landscape in some states: Across the 15 public service commissioner races in nine states this year, only five incumbents are running. Others have lost their primaries, reached their term limits, resigned, or chosen not to run for reelection.

The race in Georgia shows what’s at stake for voters. After two Democrats won commission seats last year, the board could now flip to majority-Democrat, reversing two decades of an all-Republican board.

The next commissioners will help oversee more than $54 billion by 2030 in proposed capital expenditures from Georgia Power for upgrades that could include things like new power plants, transmission lines and distribution poles and wires. The cost is likely to trickle down to customers.

Georgians are already paying an average of $163 a month on electricity bills, an increase of nearly 30% since 2020, according to data from PowerLines. Summertime averages near $266 a month, while some households have recently reported bills of over $1,000. A particular flashpoint centers around recent rate hikes related to a controversial $36.8 billion nuclear power plant completed more than $16 billion over budget. Georgia Conservation Voters, a voter mobilization group, has argued that ratepayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for cost overruns. (In 2023, Georgia Power agreed to recover $7.6 billion from customers, about $2.6 billion lower than the original amount requested.)

Tiffany Anthony, spokesperson for Georgia Power, said in an email the company has proactively tried to minimize cost. She also said the utility’s rates “are lower today than they were a year ago and have been, on average, 15% below the national average since 1990.”She added: “We take our commitment to delivering reliable, affordable energy for customers seriously.”

The current regulatory approach for utilities dates back to the early 20th century, when the US determined that, as with railroads, having one company operate in the region was more efficient than having multiple companies compete, especially when it came to building the infrastructure. In exchange, these “natural monopolies” would be overseen by regulatory bodies that ensure companies build only what’s necessary and bill customers enough to recoup the cost plus a modest return.

But that investor model has come under scrutiny as the average price of residential electricity rose sharply in the 2020s, outpacing inflation. In a state like Massachusetts, which offers a municipal utility alternative in some areas, customers report a monthly bill difference of hundreds of dollars.

Hua says the model often incentivizes companies to propose new infrastructure. “Utility companies are for-profit monopolies that make money when they spend money,” said Hua. “They earn a return on equity on capital expenditures.”

Drew Maloney, president and CEO of Edison Electric Institute, the association that represents all investor-owned electric companies, says protecting the grid is a top priority. “The grid is America’s greatest machine, and it doesn’t operate on the political calendar,” he said in a statement. “It requires consistent investment every year to deliver reliable energy to our customers.”Higher fuel cost plus the need to upgrade aging transmission lines and harden them against extreme weather have helped drive up energy bills. So have data centers, whose massive energy demand has prompted some companies to expand infrastructure.

Georgia’s commission approved in late 2025 a $16.3 billion plan to boost energy capacity by 10,000 megawatts, in part to meet projected demand from data centers. It includes a provision to use revenue from data centers to lower bills for small ratepayers, and for Georgia Power to assume financial responsibility through 2031 if the demand fails to materialize.

“The PSC recently approved a large increase in energy infrastructure for Georgia, but it is also making sure large-load customers pay their fair share, and then some,” the commission’s chairman Jason Shaw, whose seat is not up for vote, told Bloomberg in an Critics warn that residents could still end up paying up to $60 billion for the buildout, including interest and profit for the company. “We shouldn’t be paying for data centers,” said Christian Dacus, the communications and marketing director for Georgia Conservation Voters. “We shouldn't be paying for expensive nuclear power plants.”

Anthony, from Georgia Power, defended the company’s safeguard for small ratepayers, explaining that large-load customers sign 15- to 25-year contracts that require them to pay a monthly minimum bill regardless of power usage, and a “substantial termination payment” if they end the contract early.

“Simply put, large users like data centers pay more, so other customers pay less,” she said.

Residents saw modest relief in the summer of 2025 when the commission approved a three-year freeze on the base rate — a fixed monthly fee that’s not based on usage. In May 2026, the commission also approved a plan to lower rates by an average $50 a year per household. Commissioners elected this year will decide how much rates will change after the freeze ends in 2028.

Georgia Conservation Voters has been building on momentum from 2025, when Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson were elected as the first Democrats in two decades. Hubbard is running this year to hold on to his seat, while newcomer Shelia Edwards is trying to flip the other seat. “It is a start,” said Dacus. “With their power, they could take those bills back down to where they should be.”

All four candidates in Georgia are currently running on the promise of lowering rates and enforcing those data center protections for ratepayers, though they differ in approaches. Hubbard, a former renewable energy project developer, has pushed for clean energy, while his opponent — former commissioner Fitz Johnson — has said “he’d consider deploying all sources of energy.”While the November election is unlikely to overhaul the business model, Hua says it could still bring meaningful changes. “They could ask a lot of questions of the utility company that maybe cause them to do more analysis on the rate impacts of X, Y, Z in ways that they haven't had to before,” he said.

But he believes the urgency transcends politics. “Because of the growing bipartisan concern over rising utility bills,” he said, “I think that regardless of which party wins a given race, I think there are tangible opportunities for the next governor and/or commissioner to make a positive impact.”