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From the future of utility regulation to a proposal to allow transfer taxes on property sales, there was much at stake for businesses and consumers in Tuesday's election.

Here's what some business leaders had to say about the elections' outcome:

ACC political shift

Democrats had nearly clinched two of three open seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission Wednesday and were still in the running for the third. (See election story here.)

If the Democrats win all three seats, it would be the first time Democrats held a majority on the five-member regulatory panel in more than a decade.

Gary Yaquinto, president of the Arizona Investment Council, said the Democrats' pledge to increase solar and renewable energy sources would likely prove challenging.

The new commissioners will also face a steep learning curve, said Yaquinto, who served as director of the commission's utilities division for eight years under the last Democratic majority on the commission.

The Arizona Investment Council, which advocates on behalf of investors in the state's utilities, would help the commissioners negotiate that learning curve, he said. The commission must balance the interests of consumers and investors to get money flowing into the state, he said, adding that regulators must look at multiple energy sources.

"There has to be a balance," he said. "And we have to look at the reality of the situation and look at the costs, both short-term and long-term."

Al Sterman, Tucson-based vice president of the Arizona Consumers Council, said the election of Paul Newman, who lives in Bisbee, will benefit Southern Arizonans. Recently all commissioners have come from Maricopa County.

Sterman said the new commissioners should take a role in protecting low- and moderate-income families from the rising cost of utilities. They should also take a "harder look" look at the environmental impacts of nuclear, coal and other types of energy generation, he said.

Payday lenders lose

Arizona voters handily defeated Proposition 200, an initiative backed by the payday lenders that would have allowed them to operate indefinitely with some reforms.

Tom Collier, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona, said he was surprised with outcome, especially because lenders spent more than $14 million to get voters to approve the measure.

Collier said the BBB doesn't take a position on the payday-lending industry, but personally he is against it.

"I have called payday loans the methamphetamine of the financial world because they are designed to be addictive," he said.

While state law caps interest rates at 36 percent a year, lawmakers eight years ago agreed to a special exemption for payday lenders through mid-2010, allowing them to charge the equivalent of 450 percent annual interest.

Collier said he supported the defeat of Prop. 200, but he said the fight wasn't over. He anticipated lenders would next turn to lawmakers to extend the exemption.

Stan Barnes, chairman of the Yes on 200 campaign, did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Employer sanctions stand

The defeat of Proposition 202, which would have softened some provisions of a state law imposing sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants, left one of the measure's key backers worried.

"I think for the little guy, it's scary," Tucson auto dealer Jim Click said of Proposition 202's defeat and the current state law's potential for putting a company out of business.

Click said the penalties for violating the law passed by the Legislature — which include loss of the right to do business — are "way too onerous."

He said the state law as it stands is particularly threatening for small businesses, less able to afford human-resources experts to weed out ineligible applicants.

Even large businesses, including his own, are not immune from making mistakes, Click said.

"Have we had some slip through? Yes," Click said. Four or five years ago, he said, it was learned that one of his dealerships had hired an illegal worker after he was stopped coming across the border.

He said the worker's parents hadn't completed paperwork for their son, who graduated from high school in Tucson and worked in Click's parts department.

He said he hopes Congress would revisit the federal law and come up with a temporary-worker program for seasonal industries.

Home-sale fee out

Business leaders connected to Tucson's real estate market were generally pleased with how two housing-related propositions fared.

Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 100, dubbed "Protect Our Homes," which outlaws transfer taxes on property sales.

Meanwhile, voters roundly rejected Proposition 201, the so-called "Homeowners Bill of Rights," which would have placed 10-year warranties on new homes, allowed homeowners to sue for damages instead of first going to mediation and required work to be done by licensed contractors, among other provisions.

"It would have done more than raised a cost of the home. It would have negated any kind of incentive to build homes," said Ed Taczanowsky, president of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association.

Opponents of the measure had argued that it would have opened up builders to countless frivolous lawsuits.

As for the transfer tax, Taczanowsky said SAHBA had a "neutral" view of it, seeing potential and benefits and issues with the measure.

"Our association was neutral on that, but we think that's good public policy not to have that kind of financing mechanism," he said.

But Greg Furrier, a principal with Picor Commercial Real Estate, said the transfer tax could have put an undue burden on sellers and could have dampened property sales, particularly in the residential sector.