Exclusive: Cooper's seat on Board of Regents suddenly in doubt

Is Frederick Cooper a member of the Board of Regents?

The question should be simple. He was appointed to the board by Gov. Sonny Perdue in 2009. His photo and bio appear on the Board of Regents' Web site.

But, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned, Cooper's nomination was never voted on by the state Senate, as the law requires, after his name mysteriously fell off a list of gubernatorial appointments.

Cooper, who has served on the board since he was appointed in August, is suddenly in a kind of limbo.

Bob Ewing, the secretary of the Senate, told Cooper in a June 22 letter that because he was not confirmed by the Senate, his seat on the 18-member Board of Regents is now vacant and he cannot be considered for reappointment for 12 months.

But Perdue, in a letter to Ewing, disputes that. According to the letter, obtained Tuesday by the AJC, Cooper was never rejected by the Senate because his appointment was never voted on. Because of the oversight, Perdue said, he can immediately reappoint Cooper and intends to do so and says an opinion from the attorney general backs him up. His nomination would then be -- conceivably -- considered by the Senate in 2011.

Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley refused to comment about the letter, which was sent to all 56 state senators.

So what happened?

In his letter, Perdue said his floor leader "hand-delivered to the lieutenant governor a list of my appointees requiring confirmation by the Senate." Under Senate rules, that list is sent to the Rules Committee for consideration, and is then sent to the full Senate for a vote. Every year, the governor gives his floor leader in the Senate a list of several hundred names of people whom he has appointed to various boards and commissions.

But, this year, by the time the list traveled from Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle to the Rules Committee, there was one less name -- and nobody noticed. At least, not until mid-June, when the University System of Georgia notified Perdue's office that Cooper was not voted on by the Senate.

"Subsequent conversations with senators and Senate staff made clear that Mr. Cooper's name was deleted from the list at some point between the time I submitted it to the lieutenant governor's office and the time the lieutenant governor's office sent it to the Senate Rules Committee," Perdue wrote, adding that he spoke with members of the Rules Committee, who said they were not aware Cooper's name was left off.

Perdue's office confirmed Tuesday that Cooper's name was on the list they provided to Cagle, as were two other men he appointed to the Board of Regents on the same day: Larry Ellis and Larry Walker.

Perdue also said in his letter that whoever deleted Cooper's name might have violated the rules of the Senate, which require that nominations of the governor be immediately sent to committee. Perdue said he respected the role the Senate plays in confirming gubernatorial appointments, but "I believe that role was not properly respected in circumstances surrounding Mr. Cooper's nomination."

The question, then: How did Cooper's name fall off the list?

Efforts to reach Cooper were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Cagle's chief of staff, Bart Gobeil, would say only that "the list [of nominees] that was approved was the list that was approved."

Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville), the chairman of the Rules Committee, said Tuesday, "I do not believe at the time I knew" that Cooper's name wasn't on the list his committee considered.

"I'm trying to think back to two months ago," Balfour said. "Someone told me about this a week ago, and I was like, ‘What?'"

A spokeswoman for the Senate, Raegan Weber, confirmed that Cooper was not voted on by the Senate. She would not, however, release a copy of Ewing's letter to Cooper, saying the state's Open Records Act does not apply to Senate correspondence.

A spokesman for the University System of Georgia, John Millsaps, said in an e-mail to the AJC that "this appears to be an admin or clerical matter. I don't have any info from our end."

He did not respond to a follow-up question: Is Cooper currently a member of the Board of Regents?

Cooper is chairman of Cooper Capital, LLC, a private investment firm. He has been active in state Republican politics for years and backed former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed in the 2006 Republican primary against Cagle. He is also chairman of Karen Handel's campaign for the GOP nomination as governor.