Published: March 14, 2008 11:42 pm         

Candidate ready to step up, do ‘what’s right’

Dana Murphy won’t be the only candidate for the two Oklahoma Corporation Commission seats open in this fall’s election, but she may be the only one who has memorized the commission’s mission statement.

She pauses in her recitation to emphasize what she thinks is the most important few words in the statement, “Balance the rights and needs of the people with those of the regulated entities which provide essential and desirable services for the benefit of Oklahoma and its citizens.”

The Woodward native says she is making her second run for Corporation Commission because “it’s just about stepping up and doing what’s right.”

She ran for the commission in 2002, falling in the Republican primary to Jeff Cloud, who went on to win the seat. She says she enjoyed that race and thinks the experience will help her this time.

“I think you can kind of analogize it to building a house,” she said, “once you’ve done it, then you really know what to do the next time.”

Since 2002, Murphy has been a trustee at Church of Servant United Methodist Church, in Oklahoma City, and has served four years as vice chairman of Oklahoma Republican Party.

“A lot of great things came to me after I lost, I must admit,” she said.

This time she is running for the seat currently occupied by Jim Roth, who in 2007 was appointed to replace Denise Bode, who resigned. Whoever wins this fall’s race will serve the final two years of the original term.

Murphy thinks she is uniquely qualified to serve on the Corporation Commission, due to her experience. She worked as a petroleum geologist for 10 years before obtaining her law degree. For nearly six years she served as an administrative law judge at the Corporation Commission.

After her 2002 defeat, she returned to private law practice with an emphasis in title, regulatory practice and oil and gas litigation.

“I see this position as one I’ve spent my entire adult career preparing for,” she said. “I’m actually the only one running for this office that’s been an expert witness giving testimony, an administrative law judge hearing cases and an attorney presenting cases, all at the agency to which I want to be elected.”

The key issues the commission will face in the next few years, Murphy said, include whether or not to bury suspended power lines to safeguard against power outages like those sparked by this winter’s ice storms. A need for additional power generating facilities also will be an issue, she said, since today’s society is increasingly energy hungry.

“No matter how much we conserve, no matter how much more energy-efficient we become, our demand for power continues to grow,” she said. “Most people don’t know plasma TVs use about 10 times as much power as the other types of TVs. We have more electronics, we don’t build smaller homes, so I think this is going to be a perpetual situation that’s on the horizon.”

As far as memorizing the commission’s mission statement, Murphy said, “I’ve known it since I ran before. To me it’s like memorizing a scripture. It has meaning for me, an application to my life and it should have an application to all Oklahomans’ lives.”