Second new SCC judge is sworn in

Attorney Kelsey A. Bagot was sworn in Monday as the newest judge on the Virginia State Corporation Commission, filling its three-commissioner bench for the first time since March 2022.

The SCC’s panel was short two judges after the December 2022 resignation of Judge Judith Jagdmann, and nominations were held up by partisan politics. In March, Samuel T. Towell was sworn in as a judge, joining Judge Jehmal T. Hudson, the commission’s chair. Bagot, a former legal adviser with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who lives in Loudoun County, rounds out the panel with her swearing-in ceremony held Monday. Her six-year term is set to expire Jan. 31, 2030.

The SCC governs utilities, state-chartered financial institutions, securities, insurance, retail franchising and the Virginia Health Benefit Exchange.

Angela Navarro, the state’s former deputy secretary of commerce and trade, was appointed as a judge in January 2021, replacing Mark Christie, the former SCC chairman, who was appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2020. However, Navarro left office in March 2022 after Republican state legislators declined to elect her to a full term, and the split General Assembly was unable to come to an agreement on a replacement for Navarro in 2022.

SCC judges are named by state legislators or, if they can’t agree on a candidate, the governor can name a commissioner on a temporary basis, although the state Senate and House of Delegates must elect a judge to a six-year term.

Bagot was most recently a senior attorney at NextEra Energy, and was legal adviser to Christie during his tenure at FERC. She also was an associate at Troutman Sanders and Van Ness Feldman, and earned degrees at American University and Harvard Law School. She’s the SCC’s 39th commissioner.