Published: December 05, 2007 11:06 am      

Murphy to seek Roth seat

Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth may be facing a strong opponent in next year’s election that will coincide with the United States presidential election.

Edmond attorney Dana Murphy plans to file as a Republican candidate for the position. This is her second attempt, having lost to Jeff Cloud in a September 2002 primary with 41 percent of the vote. Though both Cloud and Roth’s seats will be up, Murphy said she plans to run for Roth’s seat.

Murphy is qualified for the position — having served the commission as both an administrative law judge and a geological witness. She’s also presented cases before the commission since she began her private practice after dropping out to run.

“I really think I have a sense of how things work from the bottom up,” Murphy said and also added she will have “no learning curve.”

The attorney also touts the fact that she is from the small western Oklahoma town of Woodward but now lives in Edmond, therefore being able to represent both rural and urban dwellers.

But ask her about Roth or Cloud and she has nothing bad to say.

“I kind of see him as a caretaker of the position,” Murphy says of Roth’s appointment.

She even mentioned her grandmother, who though a longtime Democrat, broke her usual straight party vote and chose Cloud in the general election at Murphy’s urging.

And when asked about the recent decision by the Corporation Commission concerning the proposed Red Rock power plant, Murphy says that cases before the commission take a great deal of study and, from the outside looking in, she doesn’t see it as her place to comment.

She did say though that she was open to using coal as fuel but that the big issue was whether or not the utility company should be allowed to charge utility ratepayers during the construction of the plant to recoop costs. The commission’s position was, more or less, that alternatives could have been better explored.

She also described the position as that of an independent thinker who has to make hard decisions. The corporation commissioner must be fair to the entities it regulates but protect ratepayers, she said.

“Everybody sees the world as they are,” Murphy says.

The attorney has a successful private practice and says she wants to run because Oklahoma has been so good to her.

“It’s a sense of wanting to give back and help our state into the future,” she said.

Murphy’s first campaign took place not long after her father’s death. Her mother helped her with the campaign on which she logged 36,000 miles on an old Jeep but managed to escape any car trouble. This year, her mother will be with her again.

“It was a real challenge but I think it was good for my mother,” she said.

Murphy said that while political inexperience hindered her in the last race, she still came close and she plans on a much better showing this time around.