Senate Panel Endorses Shumway for PUC Board

A state Senate committee controlled by Democrats recommended confirmation Tuesday of former Republican Rep. Norman Shumway to the state Public Utilities Commission.

Shumway received an unexpected endorsement before the Senate Rules Committee by Sylvia Siegel, 73, a consumer champion of California utility rate regulation for almost 20 years until her retirement a year ago.

The combative Siegel told the committee that confirmation of Shumway was necessary to improve what she called the “terribly distressed” morale of the PUC staff.

The committee, whose Democratic majority had stretched Shumway’s hearing over the last month in a political muscle-flexing exercise with Gov. Pete Wilson, voted 4 to 1 to recommend confirmation of the former congressman from Stockton and sent his name to the full Senate.

Representatives of senior citizen and Latino organizations charged that as a congressman for 12 years Shumway had been insensitive to the needs of the elderly and immigrants who do not speak English.

Shumway defended his record, but he left some Democrats on the Rules Committee skeptical about how he would perform as a $92,465-a-year member of the commission, which sets telephone, electricity and natural gas rates.