You can find a searchable list of officials with late fees at the state ethics commission website.
http://ethics.ga.gov/
Thousands of local officials would get a way out of paying outstanding ethics fines if legislation pushed by the Georgia Municipal Association becomes law.
The bill is spawned by years of computer and management problems at the state ethics commission, formally called the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, that made filing required campaign contribution reports difficult, if not impossible, for office seekers.
Marietta Councilman Griffin Chalfant calls the situation “unbelievable.”
He is one of four council members just in Marietta with outstanding fines for allegedly failing to file reports. The commission claims Chalfant owes $500 for failure to file reports in 2011 and 2013. It’s a bum rap, he said.
“I have confirmation numbers for the reports you are talking about. I think I’m in the right,” he said. But he said trying to deal with the ethics commission is “like trying to deal with Comcast or the phone company.”
The most acute problems occurred between 2010 and 2014 when local office seekers from county commissioners to school board members were required to file their campaign finance reports directly with the state. Many didn’t, either because of trouble with the state’s computer system or because they were unaware of their responsibility to file.
Not coincidentally, those years cover a turbulent time for the ethics commission, which has been sued by several former employees and embroiled in endless political imbroglios. Last year, the commission’s board fired its executive secretary and hired Stefan Ritter, a lawyer and longtime employee of the Attorney General’s Office. Since then Ritter and his staff have attempted to present a new, more competent image for the office.
GMA and state lawmakers pushed the fix last year, but the House and Senate were unable to agree on a version of the bill before the session's end. House Bill 370, sponsored by Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, is the most likely vehicle this year. The bill passed the House by a wide margin last year and awaits action in the Senate Ethics Committee.
“There is a lot of interest in the underlying bill,” Fleming said. “There were also some additions to the underlying bill that seemed to get a lot of attention last year.”
Among those additions was a requirement that groups that engage in "express election advocacy" report their spending, just like a candidate or political action committee. That part of the bill is aimed at independent groups that get involved in state politics but are not required to disclose their donors.
The House has pushed the change, angering groups like Americans for Tax Reform that occasionally target incumbent lawmakers accused of violating a pledge not to raise taxes. Fleming said he expects his bill will be taken up once the “bugs” are worked out.
Sen. Rick Jeffares, who sponsored a bill similar to HB 370 last year, said he continues to hear from local officials about the fines.
"I had a lot of city officials who were disappointed with what happened to (the bill)," he said. Senate Bill 127 passed both the House and Senate but in different forms. It died when the Senate voted down a compromise version.
Jeffares, R -McDonough, said he planned to talk with Fleming about moving HB 370 through the Senate. He said he expects GMA’s lobbyists to “come knocking” soon.
GMA spokeswoman Amy Henderson said thousands of the association’s members were caught up in problems with the state ethics commission’s filing system.
“There were just so many technical problems with that system,” she said. “A lot of them were filing paper and were still being told they had to pay.”
HB 370 would give filers the presumption of innocence and require the commission to prove by a “preponderance of the evidence” that they did not attempt to file their reports on time before any fines could be collected.
Last year the ethics commission opposed the bill, saying that filers already had a way to contest the fines by appealing their case to a judge where the commission would have to prove its case.
Based on last year’s testimony, the commission may still oppose the legislation for fear of letting thousands of scofflaws off the hook and forgoing millions in fines for the small agency.
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