Legislator in dispute via e-mail with target of bill

A legislator sponsoring a bill to weaken a state council overseeing his business said earlier this month his proposed legislation simply would handle “some housekeeping issues.”

However, e-mails obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show that Rep. Clay Cox (R-Lilburn), the CEO of a private probation company, had a running dispute with the council about the same issues he is proposing in his bill.

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Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com

E-mails from Rep. Clay Cox (R-Lilburn) dispute the authority of a council that oversees his business. He has proposed a bill to weaken the council.

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Cox proposed the legislation only four days after he fired off a testy e-mail in which he questioned the authority of the County and Municipal Probation Advisory Council, according to records obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act.

His bill, HB 622, would prohibit the council from interfering with contracts private probation companies have with the local courts. Cox’s company, Professional Probations Services Inc. of Norcross, is one of the biggest such companies in the state. It has 19 offices and contracts with about three dozen courts.

Private providers secure contracts with courts to monitor people on probation for misdemeanor offenses. In exchange for handling the cases and collecting court-imposed fines, the companies collect monthly supervision fees from the probationers.

Since 2008, the council has raised concerns with Cox about some of his company’s contracts. In January, the council’s staff director, Ashley Garner, wrote Cox that some of his contracts were not in compliance with state law or council rules and needed to be clarified.

Garner told Cox his contracts should be amended in 120 days. Garner added that the state attorney general’s office had been consulted and agreed Cox’s contracts were out of compliance.

On Friday, Feb. 27, Cox e-mailed Garner, saying the council had “no authority whatsoever” over the language of his company’s contracts. “It is my opinion that the advisory council has, like all bureaucracies, overstepped its regulatory authority contemplated by the various acts of the General Assembly creating it and granting its, what were to be, limited powers,” he wrote.

The following Tuesday, Cox submitted HB 622 to the General Assembly. He also put in another bill, HB 619, which would dismantle the council altogether. He has backed off the bill to gut the council.

After the AJC first reported he was pushing HB 622 to limit the council’s authority, Cox said the bill needed more work. He says he is revising it.

Garner declined to comment.

Last week, when asked about his e-mail exchanges with the council, Cox said it was not a conflict of interest for him to submit legislation addressing a specific business dispute he was having with a state council.

He said the bill was proposed not to benefit himself, but his industry, and that other companies and lawmakers raised concerns about the council. “I am the only member of the General Assembly who could write this bill,” he said. “Because it’s my profession.”

Cox said he saw his dispute with the council “as an opportunity that I had to correct a wrong.”

When Cox appeared before the House State Institutions and Property Committee earlier this month to push HB 622, he made no mention of his dispute with the council.

“In my view, this bill gives the council some needed guidance,” he told the committee, which approved the bill by a 5-4 vote.