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Voters on Tuesday elected Republican state Sen. Jean-Paul Coussan to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, the only seat up for grabs this year on one of the state’s most powerful political bodies, Louisiana Illuminator reports.
Coussan garnered 54% of the vote against Democrat Nick Laborde’s 26% and Republican Julie Quinn’s 20%. The conservative real estate lawyer even clinched a 43% majority in the Democratic-heavy East Baton Rouge Parish.
“I’m optimistic for the future,” Coussan said at his election watch party Tuesday night at Another Broken Egg Café. “Louisiana can be a leader in affordable energy.”
The five-member Public Service Commission is by some accounts the state’s most powerful political body that many people haven’t heard of or know little about. The regulatory board oversees utility companies providing electricity, water, natural gas and telecommunications services for most of Louisiana.
The companies include investor-owned utilities such as Cleco and Entergy, as well as member-owned rural power cooperatives. The commission also regulates pipelines and tow truck services.
Louisiana’s PSC districts are larger than congressional districts, giving the individual commissioners larger constituencies than the state’s U.S. House representatives.
Coussan entered the PSC District 2 race after Commissioner Craig Greene—the lone swing vote—announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.
The significant influence of the District 2 seat prompted Ballotpedia to declare the race a “2024 battleground election”—a designation the site uses only for a small percentage of races that are expected “to have a meaningful effect on the balance of power in governments or to be particularly competitive or compelling.”
