COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A nominating council on Monday forwarded four names to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to fill a seat on the powerful Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to replace its chairman, who resigned days after the FBI searched his Columbus townhome.

The four finalists are Supreme Court Justice Judith French, who lost a re-election bid in November; Anne Vogel, a top DeWine aide who formerly worked as an attorney for the electric utility AEP Ohio; Angela Amos, a policy adviser at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and Gregory Poulos, the executive director of a non-profit utility group called Consumer Advocates of the PJM States.

French and Vogel are Republicans. Amos is a Democrat and Poulos is an independent.

DeWine has 30 days to select Samuel Randazzo's replacement. Randazzo resigned Nov. 20, four days after the FBI search and the day after FirstEnergy Corp., Ohio's largest electric utility, said in a quarterly earnings report that top executives had paid approximately $4 million to end a consulting contract in early 2019 with a utility regulator matching Randazzo's description.

DeWine selected Randazzo as chairman of the utilities commission and the Ohio Power Siting Board within a few days of receiving a similar list of nominees in February 2019. Republican insiders said recently they warned DeWine about Randazzo's previous work with Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. ahead of selecting him.

The FBI, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ohio Secretary of State's Office are investigating FirstEnergy's role in an alleged $60 million bribery scheme to win legislative approval of a $1 billion bailout for the company's two Ohio nuclear power plants. Then-Ohio House Speaker and four others were arrested in late July and subsequently indicted on racketeering charges.

Before Monday's vote and closed-door interviews with eight candidates by the nominating council, Catherine Turcer of the progressive good government group Common Cause Ohio issued a statement calling on DeWine to require additional financial disclosure for utilities commission applicants.

“Ohioans should be able to ‘follow the money'; such disclosure will help Governor DeWine identify conflicts of interest and could help head off future problems," Turcer wrote.

Also on Monday, three former PUCO members asked DeWine to “exert the full extent of its regulatory authority” to restore public confidence in the commission.

Former commission members, Ashley Brown, J. Michael Biddison and Todd Snitchler — a Democrat, independent and Republican, respectively — urged DeWine and the commission to hire an outside firm to investigate Randazzo's interactions with FirstEnergy, its affiliates and lobbyists to determine whether the company was shown any favoritism in decisions by the commission.

They also said the commission may want to re-examine FirstEnergy electric rates.

A third-party review similar to what the three former commission members requested is already underway, said PUCO spokesman Matt Schilling, and legal filings are pending that would open Randazzo's voting history to scrutiny.