Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Todd Hiett said on Tuesday he will not resign, despite the national embarrassment caused by his drunken behavior at a regulatory conference in June in Minnesota.
A witness from the Kansas Corporation Commission reported Hiett, 57, put his hand on a man’s groin area in the hotel lobby bar late June 9. “I thought, OK, you have just witnessed a sexual assault and we need to get (the man) out of here,” she wrote in her account.
In a statement to the media, Hiett said the commission is facing a heavy workload that includes numerous rate cases with a tremendous potential impact to ratepayers.
“It would be a detriment for me to step aside from my responsibility to balance the interests of ratepayers to those of the utilities,” he said.
Hiett issued the statement to the media after Commissioner Bob Anthony said he must resign. Hiett has clashed repeatedly with Anthony, who is in the last months of his final term in office.
On Monday, Anthony called on Hiett to resign after The Oklahoman reported on the sexual misconduct accusation.