No, the Todd Hiett drinking and sex scandal at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission isn’t going away anytime soon.
When the commission meets Tuesday afternoon, it will be asked by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony to take a recorded vote on the hiring of an outside firm to conduct an investigation of the allegations that led to calls for Hiett to resign his office. Last week, the agency’s General Administrator Brandy Wreath moved ahead with the hiring of the Riggs Abney law firm of Oklahoma City to conduct a so-called independent investigation of the incident where Hiett allegedly was drunk and groped a man at a hotel bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The commission did not take a vote on the hiring and Commissioner Anthony wants a formal decision because the commission, he says, “faces an extraordinary, unprecedented assault on the integrity, credibility and legitimacy of its operations and legislative and judicial proceedings (since prior commissioners facing comparable allegations have resigned).”
Anthony contends the hiring of Riggs-Abney amounts to the hiring by subordinates of Commissioner Hiett and their employment is dependent upon the commissioners. He also wants a recorded commissioner vote to “make clear to the public that it is Oklahoma’s Corporation Commissioners, and no one else who are ultimately resonsible for the way this exceptional circumstance is now being handled.”
“For the record, I view the failure by any commissioner(s) to take a formal position for or against approval of any Commissioner misconduct investigation to reflect willful neglect of duty by said commissioner(s),” stated Anthony in his agenda item for the Tuesday meeting.
His call for a recorded vote would include an investigation well beyond the June 2024 incident where Hiett’s alleged groping of a man at a hotel bar, groping that was witnessed by others attending the same national convention, became publicly known last month. Commissioner Anthony wants an independent, thorough and transparent investigation into any possible Commissioner misconduct going back to January 12, 2015. The year 2015 is when Hiett, a former Speaker of the State House of Representatives, took office as a Corporation Commissioner.
Anthony also wants the results of any such independent investigation to be made public within five business days at its conclusion. He is among those calling for Hiett’s resignation, but Hiett has refused. Instead, Commissioner Hiett maintains he is undergoing treatment for his “affliction” and intends to remain in office, stating such a resignation would be harmful to the ongoing utility cases currently before the commission.