Minority and Women’s Representation on State Public Utility Commissions

In 2010, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) studied the number of minorities and women on public utility commissions (PUCs) as a function of several variables: compensation, term of office, number of PUC members, party restrictions, whether they are elected or appointed, and (for minorities) minority representation in the state. The results showed that minorities and women are both significantly underrepresented.

There were no correlations between representation and the variables analyzed, with one exception: a very strong, positive correlation was found between compensation and the number of women represented, with higher compensation correlating with higher representations of women on PUCs. We attribute this to the likelihood that states with more farsighted stewardship of their PUCs are more likely to both provide attractive compensation to PUC members and to promote diversity among their PUCs’ commissioners. Of the 51 public utilities commissions,1 39 (76.5%) did not have minority membership that was greater than or equal to the proportion of minorities in that particular state, and 12 (23.5%) had minority membership that was greater to or equal to the proportion of minorities in the state. Thirty-three of the PUCs (64.7%) did not have a single minority member on their PUC, and 18 of
the PUCs (35.3%) had at least one minority member. Forty-two of the PUCs (82.4%) did not have women's membership of 50% or greater, while nine (17.6%) did have womenfs membership of 50% of greater. Fifteen (29.5%) of the PUCs had no woman members, while 36 PUCs (70.5%) had at least one woman member.