Fitz Johnson prevails in PSC residency challenge

Fitz Johnson meets the legal residency requirement to run for the Republican nomination for the District 3 Georgia Public Service Commission seat, an administrative law judge ruled Friday.

Judge Kimberly Schroer issued her advisory decision after weighing evidence from a three-and-a-half hour hearing earlier in the week. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger upheld the ruling Monday. (Listen to the hearing at this link.)

“Fitz was found to have valid residency and we are affirming that decision,” a spokesman for the secretary of state, Robert Sinners, told The Current GA.

Early voting in the primary elections begins April 27.

Johnson’s residency was challenged in part because he signed loan documents that committed him to live in a $1.3 million house in Cobb County, which is outside District 3.

In her written decision, Schroer acknowledged Johnson’s mortgage as well as other actions that pointed to a life centered on Cobb County.

“(A)lthough Mr. Johnson may face questions from voters relating to whether his living arrangements allow him to become sufficiently ‘familiar with the problems, needs, and concerns of the people [he] seeks to represent’ in District 3, he has proved that he been a legal resident of Fulton County since at least November 3, 2025, and is qualified to run for Commissioner in PSC District 3 under Georgia law,” Schroer wrote.

Daniel O’Toole, a DeKalb County resident who brought the residency challenge, has not yet decided if he will appeal the ruling.

“All options are on the table,” he wrote.

O’Toole’s attorney, Bryan Sells, declined comment.

Johnson did not reply to a request for comment. His campaign’s social media accounts have not acknowledged the residency challenge.

A residency challenge last year in the Democratic primary race for the same PSC seat resulted in the disqualification of Daniel Blackman.

Running for the seat again

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 have lived in the district connected to the seat for which they’re running for 12 months prior to the general election. 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. But Kemp appointed him to the seat for District 3, made up of Fulton, Clayton and DeKalb counties.

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. Johnson is now running in the May 19 Republican primary for a chance to reclaim that seat.

Hearing highlights

At the hearing April 13, Johnson testified that he spent most of his time at his $1.3 million Cobb County home rather than the more modest home in Fulton County where he is registered to vote. He doesn’t claim a homestead exemption at either address.

“Johnson registered to vote in Fulton County and has voted as a Fulton County resident in ten elections from November 2, 2021 through November 4, 2025,” Schroer wrote. His driver’s license also lists his Fulton County address.

But Johnson testified that he does not sleep or keep clothing at the Fulton County house, which is occupied by a woman his wife mentored years ago in the Big Brother/Big Sister program and whom he and his wife intend to adopt.

Johnson, an attorney and a realtor, testified that he had not read in full the loan documents he signed in early 2025 that committed him to live in the Cobb house for at least a year.

A luxury car collector, Johnson owns a Corvette, a Bentley Continental GT, a Mercedes Benz SL and a Porsche Cayenne. He testified that he couldn’t remember the address he used for the vehicle’s insurance. But the most recent purchase, the Porsche, he registered to his Cobb County address in September.

Both the testimony and the judge’s decision tried to parse the difference between a “domicile” and a “principal residence,” with voter registration being key evidence in Johnson’s favor.

“The evidence proved that his intentions were to remain a legal resident of Fulton County for purposes of maintaining his eligibility to vote in Fulton County and to serve as PSC Commissioner for District 3, and he took several steps to do so, including registering two of his cars at the Brantley Street address, receiving both personal and business mail there, and paying the utilities, the taxes, and homeowner’s insurance for the property,” Schroer wrote. “The evidence also proved that he has a key and a room that is his to use at the Brantley Street address, and he can come and go from the house as he chooses.”

O’Toole disagrees. A Realtor who worked on incumbent PSC Commissioner Peter Hubbard’s campaign, O’Toole said he acted independently when filing his complaint disagrees.

“The judge set the bar way too low,” he said.

“It’s clear he doesn’t live in Fulton and he doesn’t intend to,” he said. “He’s either committing voter fraud or mortgage fraud.”

Georgia law does not set a minimum number of days per year of occupying a house to determine a candidate’s residency as some other states do.

“It’s best described as your intent to stay/remain, and it gets tricky,” said Sinners, the Secretary of State spokesman.

This article appears in 2026 Elections: Candidate lists, news.