Fight the Smoligarchy: And The Trojan Horse Commission

How the Governor's "Gift" to Hoosier Rate-Payers Came Armed with Utility PACs

Good news Hoosiers—according to Governor Mike Braun, the state of our state is strong.

The governor even presented a gift to struggling Hoosiers: a slate of “rate-payer conscious” appointments to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC), promising a new focus on affordability. It was offered as a protective fortress against soaring bills.

But the gift, dear reader, is a Trojan Horse. And the soldiers, now inside the gates, are armed with utility PAC checkbooks.

The newly appointed chair, Andy Zay, is the embodiment of this ruse. As a former state senator on the utilities committee, Zay wasn’t a watchdog—he was a known recipient. His campaigns were bankrolled by the very corporations whose rate hike requests he is now tasked with approving or denying in the “public interest.” In 2024, Zay’s State Senate campaign accepted money from a who’s who of state’s energy giants: AES ($300), Geenex Solar ($400), Duke Energy ($500), American Electric Power ($1,000), and NiSource ($1,000).

Thousands of dollars in campaign contributions bought access and reliably aligned interests.

Zay’s six-year voting record as a state senator shows where those interests lay. Citizens Action Coalition, Indiana’s leading consumer advocacy organization, graded him on utility and consumer protection legislation and, surprise, he only voted in favor of Hoosier rate-payers 40% of the time. Now, as chair of the IURC, that alignment is complete.

The utilities didn’t need to storm the commission. Instead, they funded the delegation sent to guard it. When Zay reviews a rate hike request, he isn’t judging a neutral corporate filing. He is reviewing an invoice from a patron.

This is the textbook definition of regulatory capture. Not by blunt force, but by clever infiltration. The governor’s so-called “consumer-conscious” watchdog is, in reality, an embedded agent for utility profits. His mandate is not to slash bills or challenge excessive costs, but to rubber-stamp the transfer of every grid upgrade and executive bonus from shareholder ledgers to kitchen-table budgets under the guise of “just and reasonable” necessity.

And all of this comes as Hoosier households are already absorbing rising utility costs, with families expected to shoulder billions in infrastructure investments while utilities enjoy legally protected returns. True public-interest regulation would look very different. It would empower commissioners to reject excessive guaranteed profit margins, disallow multi-million-dollar executive bonuses from rate bases, and seriously explore alternatives like publicly-owned utilities that prioritize affordability over shareholder returns.

Governor Braun did not appoint a defender for us struggling Hoosiers.

He wheeled in a Trojan Horse.

And while the governor sells the story of affordability, the only thing being unloaded inside the regulatory walls is guaranteed return on investment for the utilities that paid for the delivery.