In a busy election year, the one office in the state charged with enforcing ethics and campaign finance laws is the political equivalent of a tire fire: a hot, stinky mess.
The state ethics commission has made no progress on any of its 169 open ethics cases in nearly a year. It has yet to release even the first draft of regulations governing lobbying reforms passed more than a year ago. And although the law requires the commission to inspect every campaign finance form submitted to it, the small office staff does not even attempt it.
Last week, Gov. Nathan Deal delivered the coup de grâce: Deal called the office “broken” and riddled with “confusion, dysfunction and inefficiency,” consigning the beleaguered state agency to irrelevancy in a year in which Deal and hundreds of candidates will be running for state offices.
Deal and his opponents are vowing reforms, elevating the commission to election-year campaign fodder, but none that would be implemented now. That means the agency, formally known as the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, will have no new money, staff or leadership to clear its backlog or police this year’s state elections.
The commission is supposed to keep an eye on thousands of individual campaign finance reports from hundreds of candidates raising tens of millions of dollars. It’s also supposed to keep tabs on registered lobbyists and vendors.
But for most of the last two years, the agency has been mired in internal squabbles and tied up in defending against lawsuits filed by former employees.
This month a jury award the state ethics commission's former director more than $700,000, siding with her when she said she was fired for pursuing an investigation into Deal's 2010 gubernatorial campaign. It's likely just the first in a string of embarrassing trials for the commission as it deals with former employees who claim they were fired for blowing the whistle on an alleged cover up of the Deal investigation.
"The verdict in the whistle blower case is reflective of something I've felt for a long time," said Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, an advocate for ethics reforms. "The public at large doesn't have confidence in the current system and the current system isn't working."
Even the commissioners themselves are now advocating the nuclear option — blow it up and start from scratch.
“I agree with any Republican or Democrat who believes that the current ethics structure in the state of Georgia is flawed and broken,” Commissioner Heath Garrett, a political strategist and former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive interview. “Right now the entire ethics commission is bogged down by the legal morass of pending litigation, the political circus of a campaign year and by the lack of enough (information technology) and legal staff.”
“I completely support ethics reform that totally overhauls the agency,” added Commission Chairman Kevin Abernethy, an attorney and former legislative staffer in the State Senate, who also spoke exclusively with the AJC. “I think it’s an excellent idea and I welcome the debate.”
Last week, Deal said he plans to expand the commission from five to 13 members, some of whom would be appointed by judicial branch. State Sen. Jason Carter, a Democrat running for governor, restated his support for a commission appointed by the state’s top judges and with a guaranteed budget.
This public passion for reform comes at an inopportune time. A significant overhaul of the commission and the money to fund it would require legislative action and the General Assembly adjourned for the year on March 20.
Deal could call the General Assembly into a special session to reform the agency, but that would be costly and terribly unpopular with lawmakers running for reelection. He has access to an emergency fund, but Deal’s office prefers to hold that money for more traditional emergencies like floods or tornadoes.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he believes the commission needs structural changes and more money. But that will have to wait until next year.
“I applaud Gov. Deal for his leadership on this very important issue and look forward to working with him during next year’s legislative session to implement these reforms,” he said in a statement.
Marshall Guest, spokesman for House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, pointed to last year’s reforms as a signal that his boss supports stronger ethics laws. But, speaking on Ralston’s behalf, Guest did not offer any ideas of what could be done now.
“The speaker believes that the governor is taking this state in the right direction with this reform, which will help ensure that the process works efficiently and fairly,” he said.
House Ethics Committee Chairman Joe Wilkinson, R-Atlanta, expressed some frustration with the commission for its slow pace in churning out regulations.
The Legislature last year passed the state’s first-ever limits on how, when and where lobbyists could spend money on public officials, but the bill left many with questions about how the reforms were to be implemented. The commission waited until January before beginning work on writing rules for implementing the reforms but has yet to produce even a first draft.
Wilkinson said he thinks the governor’s plan to expand the commission is “excellent.” But he stopped short of blaming the commissioners or Executive Secretary Holly LaBerge for the mess.
“I’m not going to criticize anyone. I’m just going to say the governor has proposed an excellent fix,” he said.
Garrett and Abernethy agreed with Deal’s plan to expand the commission, but they advocated even broader reforms.
The commission needs greater independence, including a dedicated source of funding rather than relying on annual budget appeals to lawmakers they are supposed to be regulating, they said.
Currently, the commission has a $1.3 million budget — less than a fourth of what the Legislature sets aside for agricultural marketing. Garrett said the agency should receive a dedicated fraction of the state budget — enough for a budget between $6 million and $7 million.
With that money, Garrett said the commission could hire lawyers, paralegals, investigators and a top-flight IT expert to keep its balky computer systems from crashing. He said the office also needs to be headed by a lawyer, which LaBerge is not.
Proper funding and political independence would create a strong watchdog agency that could sift legitimate ethics complaints from politically charged chaff, he said.
William Perry, executive director of watchdog group Common Cause Georgia, has been a loud critic of the ethics commission for years and said powerful politicians can accomplish a lot without taking formal action.
“Political pressure from Speaker Ralston, from the lieutenant governor and the governor to do their job would help a lot,” he said. “There just seems to be enough problems in the agency that they commission needs to look at new leadership. There is such a high level of dysfunction there. It seems the reset button needs to be hit pretty soon.”
About the Author
