Judge to rule on PSC candidate Fitz Johnson’s residency status

Former Public Service Commissioner Fitz Johnson videotaped a campaign ad from the sleek kitchen of his $1.3 million Cobb County home last year. Trouble is, as the commissioner for District 3 and as a candidate for the seat, Johnson was required to live in Fulton, Clayton or DeKalb counties. Cobb is in District 5. A […]

Former Public Service Commissioner Fitz Johnson videotaped a campaign ad from the sleek kitchen of his $1.3 million Cobb County home last year.

Trouble is, as the commissioner for District 3 and as a candidate for the seat, Johnson was required to live in Fulton, Clayton or DeKalb counties. Cobb is in District 5.

Johnson’s otherwise forgotten campaign history made a reappearance Monday in a 3.5- hour hearing in front of Administrative Law Judge Kimberly Schroer in Atlanta. The judge will determine if Johnson meets the residency requirement to continue his bid to reclaim the seat he lost in November.

The five-member Public Service Commission regulates investor-owned utilities, with much of its attention focused on Georgia Power. Commissioners are elected in statewide voting, but must live in the district connected to the seat for which they’re running. The commission’s decisions influence both the price of electricity for millions of Georgians and the company’s reliance on climate-warming fuels.

Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Johnson to the PSC in July 2021 to fill a vacancy. Johnson, an Army veteran and businessman with a law degree from the University of Kentucky College of Law, lived in Cobb County prior to his appointment and ran unsuccessfully for the Cobb County Commission in 2020.

Commissioners typically serve 6-year terms, though that pattern was disrupted by an ultimately unsuccessful voting rights lawsuit, forcing the cancellation of two scheduled PSC races in 2022.  To get the staggered voting back on track, the 2025 race for then-incumbent Johnson’s District 3 seat was for a one-year term. In November, Johnson lost to Democrat Peter Hubbard. He’s now running in the May 19 Republican primary for a chance to reclaim that seat.

Complaint filed

DeKalb resident Daniel O’Toole filed a complaint in March challenging Johnson’s qualification based on his residency.  Georgia sets a mandatory residency requirement that “in order to be elected as a member of the commission from a Public Service Commission District, a person shall have resided in that district for at least 12 months prior to election thereto.”

O’Toole attached a March, 2025, security deed, in which Johnson and his wife attest that they reside at the Cobb County address. An occupancy clause of the nearly $1 million mortgage loan document requires the borrower to use the property as a principal residence within 60 days after signing and for at least a year thereafter. O’Toole has worked for Hubbard’s campaign, but said he filed the complaint independently.

In the hearing, Johnson denied that he committed mortgage fraud, O’Toole said. Johnson did not respond after the hearing on Monday to a request for comment.

Residential mortgage fraud is a felony in Georgia, carrying a sentence of 1-10 years and/or a fine up to $5,000.

More evidence of Johnson’s residence was offered at the hearing, including a home equity loan the couple received in May 2025 that also gives the Mars Hill Road home in Cobb County as his residence. Multiple vehicles are registered to and parked at his Cobb address, including one registered in September.

Supporting Johnson’s claim that his residence is Fulton County are his voter registration and his payment of insurance and utility bills at his Brantley Street house in Atlanta, where he testified his adult daughter lives rent free, O’Toole said.

Johnson is registered to vote using his address as 2432 Brantley St., NW, Atlanta. That’s a 1,300-square-foot home Johnson bought for $430,000 in 2024 in an unqualified sale from a “related individual” listed as Corey L. Johnson in Fulton County property records.

While Johnson testified that he has a bedroom in his Fulton County house, he said he does not sleep there or keep his clothing there, O’Toole said after Monday’s hearing.

“He’s done not even the bare minimum to pretend he lives in Fulton,” O’Toole said.

A decision is expected this month.

“Right now, it’s in the judge’s hands,” said Attorney Bryan Sells, who represented O’Toole.  “There’s no timeline for a decision, but we expect one within the next week or two.  Then it goes to the Secretary of State to render his decision. He can either agree with the judge or disagree.”

The Office of the Secretary of State did not respond to two requests for process information.

This article first appeared on The Current and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.