Former director of agency announces PSC candidacy
Keila Szpaller
(Daily Montanan) David Sanders, who previously served as the executive director of the Montana Public Service Commission, announced Tuesday he will run for an elected post with the commission in 2026.
The five-member Public Service Commission regulates monopoly utilities in Montana.
Sanders, a Helena Republican, will run in District No. 5, a district representing northwest Montana east of Kalispell.
In an interview, Sanders said the PSC has a responsibility to the people of Montana, and it needs to get back on track.
“I feel a lot of personal investment and ownership of the work that we did at the PSC when I was there, and I still follow it very closely,” Sanders said.
He described staff at the agency as “really outstanding professional public servants” with whom he worked in 2024, but he also said change is needed within the commission.
“I think people forget that the first two words of Public Service Commission are ‘public service,’” Sanders said. “That should be the focus of the PSC, and not private grievances or political gamesmanship.”
The Public Service Commission has been riddled with political strife in recent months, and Sanders’ announcement is in part a bid to help bring a renewed sense of mission to the organization he helped lead for a year in 2024.
In July, former PSC President Brad Molnar announced he was under investigation for professional misconduct in a case that’s pending; Molnar has admitted only to being unrefined in his interactions.
Since then, fellow commissioners ousted him as president, an internal team asked the governor to suspend Molnar from office, and Molnar filed a complaint against another commissioner with the state’s ethics watchdog alleging misuse of state resources.
In the meantime, the Public Service Commission faces significant issues, such as a multi-pronged rate case by NorthWestern Energy, the state’s largest utility, and its proposed merger with Black Hills Corp.
“I feel very confident that we can refocus the PSC on its mission,” Sanders said. “I think that’s a function of leadership, and I think I can provide that leadership. I did at the staff level previously, and I think it will be even easier as a commissioner.”
His announcement comes with a political endorsement right out of the gate, a nod from a statewide elected Republican that’s not a given in a potential primary race.
State Auditor James Brown, who previously served as president of the PSC, helped hire Sanders as director there, and then brought Sanders on as chief of staff when he took the helm of the Auditor’s Office.
Having served four years as a commissioner, Brown said he saw how important the agency is to both the citizens of Montana and to the economy of the state.
“I have an interest in ensuring the people who serve on that commission are interested in being good public servants and that agency is functioning at its maximum,” Brown said.
He would lose Sanders as his chief of staff, but for the good of Montana, Brown said he was excited to hear Sanders wanted to run for office with the agency given his chief executive, senior government and military background.
Sanders previously served as a member of the Senior Management Team of the U.S. Department of Transportation; chief executive of one of the DOT’s operating administrations; and staff director of the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade of the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, according to the January 2024 announcement the PSC released when it hired Sanders.
Brown and Sanders worked together at the PSC after it received poor reviews from the Legislative Audit Division, and Brown said he can attest to Sanders’ executive leadership skills and ability to be a turnaround agent.
“He has the skillset and relationships to do that,” Brown said.
Commissioner Annie Bukacek currently holds the District 5 seat, and she did not return a message Tuesday about whether she intends to file for re-election in 2026.
In 2022, Bukacek, a Republican and controversial doctor from the Flathead Valley, bested her Democratic challenger, John Repke, with 56% of the vote. The PSC districts have since been redrawn.
Sanders on PSC work
In recent years, members of the Public Service Commission have voted to give monopoly utilities the rate increases they’ve wanted, but Sanders said it’s time to put the claims utilities make to the test.
“For many years, the Public Service Commission failed to fully scrutinize the rate cases that were put before them,” Sanders said.
The Montana Consumer Counsel looks out for ratepayers, he said, but it’s “grossly outmanned,” especially compared to the lawyers and lobbyists South Dakota’s NorthWestern Energy and Montana-Dakota Utilities have, Sanders said.
“We have to keep an eye on these out-of-state power companies and how they charge our ratepayers and whether or not they’re providing adequate service,” Sanders said.
He said commissioners need to take a closer look at planning decisions, infrastructure investments — such as NorthWestern’s Yellowstone County Generating Station — and even executive pay.
He said he isn’t inherently opposed to natural gas as a power source, but if a company wants ratepayers to pay for an investment, the deal requires scrutiny.
“You can’t just assume that what the regulated entity is putting forward is what is absolutely necessary,” Sanders said. “You have to have professionals and experts looking things over very closely, having very, very, very sharp pencils, and trying to protect the ratepayers as best they can.”
The work the PSC does with NorthWestern and MDU is high profile, but Sanders also pointed to the importance of its other responsibilities, such as doing inspections related to rail carriers, or BNSF, and regulating land line communications, garbage companies, and small water utilities.
“There’s a lot that the PSC does in its scope and mandate, or that it should be doing,” Sanders said. “But … unfortunately, personal animosities and petty grievances seem to be what the PSC has been focused on since January of this year.”
Montana has a 21st century economy, he said, but it’s powered by an ancient grid, and the state needs new sources of power and new ways of transmitting and distributing it to continue propelling the economy.
And he said it’s important for PSC members to understand the importance of regulated utilities to plan for the economic future. Sanders has a degree in economics from the College of William & Mary in Virginia.
“The American economy in particular, but all global economies, have usually been fueled by inexpensive power and inexpensive money, (or) low interest rates and abundant power,” he said.
“If we can get back to those days, there are no limits to what the American economy, what the Montana economy, can do.”
Sanders’ personal background
Sanders, 65, came to Montana in 2022 to live near his son, but he considers himself a fourth generation Montanan, with a father born in Darby, grandfather from Stevensville, and great-grandfather an early Montana pioneer.
Sanders grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and he served on his town council for 19 years in McLean, Virginia, originally elected as a youth member, and later serving as chairperson, he said.
He also served as a U.S. Army officer from 1981 to 1989, he said, and earlier in the ROTC, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corp.
Sanders lives in Helena with his wife, Kathie Sanders, and his son, Don Sanders, also lives in Helena.
He announced his candidacy Tuesday; the official filing date for public office is in January 2026.
In PSC District No. 1, Jeff Pattison, of Glasgow, and Jeremy Trebas, a state senator from Great Falls, both Republicans, have filed campaign paperwork with the Commissioner of Political Practices.
Commissioner Randy Pinocci currently holds the seat but is termed out.