Utility regulators take millions from industries they oversee. What could go wrong?
It was 2:30 in the morning on Nov. 6, 2014, when flames engulfed the New Orleans home of political consultant Mario Zervigon. Someone had lit his cars on fire, and the flames spread to his house. Zervigon and his family barely made it out of the three-unit building alive. Multiple cats didn’t.
Law enforcement deemed it arson and investigated whether the fire was related to Zerivigon’s campaign work. (The case would ultimately be closed without naming a suspect.) The night before the fire, Zervigon had celebrated the primary election victory of one of his clients for a seat on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission (PSC), a down-ballot position with vast power over the state’s utility companies.
The candidate, Forest Bradley-Wright, was running as a Republican on a reform platform. He had rejected donations from companies the PSC oversees — a rarity in Louisiana. But the firebombing rattled his campaign. Zervigon took a leave of absence, Bradley-Wright’s fundraising flagged, and another candidate, who had received generous support from the companies in question, eked out a 1.6 percentage point win in the general election.
