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Last year’s near collapse of the state ethics commission due to in-fighting and the firing of its maligned director prompted earnest calls to reboot the troubled watchdog agency, already considered one of the weakest in the nation.
This week, Georgia lawmakers unveiled a reform measure that takes aim at a select class of aggrieved parties: politicians.
Two new bills would provide near-amnesty for hundreds of local politicians who owe late fees for missing filing deadlines for campaign contribution reports and personal financial disclosures.
The bills claim the commission’s balky computer system and dysfunctional management have created a system that cannot be trusted. As a result, the bill sponsors claim that officials should be given the benefit of the doubt that they tried to file legally required reports — unless the commission can prove they didn’t.
Senate Bill 127 and House Bill 370 both provide a "rebuttable presumption" that local political candidates tried to file on time and should have their fines dismissed. If passed as written, the commission could only collect a fine if they provide candidates "knowingly and willfully" did not file the reports — an extremely high legal standard.
Sen. Rick Jeffares, R-McDonough, said the commission has a list of hundreds of late filers occupying local offices around the state and some relief has to be provided.
“There are mayors and county commissioners all over south Georgia that have $1,000 fines, $2,000 fines,” he said.
One local official who stands to benefit from the bills is Sen. Jeffares sister-in-law, Laura Jeffares, who ran for the Henry County Board of Commissioners in 2012. The commission website says she owes $125 for filing her personal financial disclosure about a month late.
The violation earned her a blistering headline on a conservative blog that follows county politics. Laura Jeffares withdrew from the race soon after citing family commitments. Sen. Jeffares said he was not aware of the fine.
Municipal and county officials have lobbied hard for relief from an ethics reform package the Legislature passed in 2010 that required local candidates to electronically file their disclosures with the state and increased fines for late-filers. Before the reforms, local candidates had turned in their reports to local filing officers, often a city or county clerk. Jeffares said local politicians had trouble with the change.
“When you get down in rural Georgia, there are a lot of them who didn’t know how to do it,” he said.
Lawmakers changed the system back last year, but now the ethics commission has a long list of late-filers on its website. For years the ethics commission has been too immersed in lawsuits and internal strife to systematically collect those fines. The commission's final step toward dysfunction came last summer when a Fulton judge declared the executive director dishonest, leading to her termination.
During his reelection campaign in the fall, Deal promised to restructure the commission, broadening its membership, but last month he said he wanted to wait a year to weigh the effect of staffing changes in the office. His proposed state budget nearly doubles funding for the commission, adding eight new positions.
So far, the bills from Sen. Jeffares and Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, sponsor of the House version of the fine amnesty bill, are the only two pieces of legislation from the Republican majority aimed at fixing problems at the troubled commission. The measures have the support of the Georgia Municipal Association, representing city officials, and bipartisan support in both chambers.
If passed, local officials could challenge late fees assessed for filings between 2010 and 2014. Moreover, candidates who paid fines anytime since Jan. 1, 2014, could apply to the commission for a refund.
The proposals have been cooly received by the ethics commission. Commission Chairwoman Hillary Stringfellow said refunding past fines would be “logistically impossible as our late fees pass immediately to the state treasury with the commission only retaining $25.”
Stringfellow said if local politicians are concerned about the fines, they need only wait a little while longer since there is three- to five-year statute of limitations on the fines if the commission has not acted on them. That’s “many, if not most, of the late fliers this bill is intended to assist,” she said.
The bills are based on an audit of the commission released last year that found mismanagement and technical problems throughout the small office. Jim Kulstad, a lobbyist for good government group Common Cause Georgia, said the problems with the ethics commission are so deep that officials should be able to appeal their fines, but he thinks the current bill is too forgiving for candidates who just ignored the law.
Kulstad said he is discouraged that Republicans lawmakers and Gov. Nathan Deal have made no sweeping attempts to reform the commission.
“They are citing this audit. Let’s read the audit more thoroughly and find out how we can fix the problem,” he said.
Rep. Fleming said his bill just provides relief for people caught up in the commission’s problems.
“Folks tried to file and thought they did file but there is no record of it with the commission,” he said. “Nobody thinks they did anything intentionally wrong but they have thousands (of dollars) in fines.”
The current versions of the bills do not provide the same protections for state-level officials accused of filing late.
“Our campaigns tend to have more resources,” Fleming said.
However, one of those state officials on the late filer list was Fleming himself, who was accused of not filing his 2013 personal financial disclosure on time. Fleming said he was unaware of the fine when The Atlanta Journal-Constitution pointed it out to him and he highlighted a section of state law that appears to show he did file on time.
Later in the day, the fine was removed after Fleming said he contacted the commission, which said the fine was listed in error.
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