Ducey Appoints Tobin to Corp Comm

By: Luige del Puerto azcapitoltimes.com December 30, 2015 , 1:41 pm 

Gov. Doug Ducey today appointed former House Speaker and Andy Tobin as the Arizona Corporation Commission’s newest regulator.

The governor made the appointment a day after the regulators met to elect Commissioner Doug Little as interim chairman. Tobin will replace Commissioner Susan Bitter Smith when her resignation becomes effective on January 4th.

“There’s a reason I’ve trusted Andy with so many important roles in my own administration – he’s a person of outstanding integrity,” Ducey said in a news release. “Andy is his own man, known for sticking to his guns and doing what he knows is right, even when the stakes are high and even under intense outside pressure. Now, more than ever, that strength of character is needed on this commission.”

Tobin, who is currently the director of the Arizona Department of Insurance and the interim director of the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, will be vacating those posts.

Bitter Smith is resigning as a commissioner following Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s decision to seek her ouster from office over conflict-of-interest allegations.

Brnovich argued that Bitter Smith is not eligible to hold her office because of her ties to companies or their affiliates that she regulates.

Bitter Smith, a Republican, is a registered lobbyist for Cox Communications and serves as executive director of the Southwest Cable Communications Association. Brnovich said those ties mean she has a “pecuniary interest” in decisions made by the Corporation Commission.

She has maintained she does not have a conflict of interest and her work as a cable TV representative is not directly regulated by the commission. It’s not a “gray area,” she said – she clearly did not break the law.

Still, the commission’s work was hampered by media reports and outside influences, so she decided to resign, she said.

“I hope that the outside noise will dim down so that the commission can focus on the really, really important issues it has to do,” Bitter Smith earlier said.