Hecht accuses Olens of using AG office for campaign

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State Attorney General Sam Olens’ Democratic opponent is accusing the Republican incumbent of using his government staff and resources to support his reelection.

“If I am attorney general, no state resources will be used for politics,” Greg Hecht said in a statement.

Hecht, a lawyer and former state senator, based his claims on a series of emails sent between Olens’ office across from the Capitol and his campaign staff.

Attorney Doug Chalmers, who is handling Olens’ campaign finance matters, said Hecht is off base and that communication between Olens’ office and his campaign staffers is “perfectly legitimate.”

“Mr. Hecht seems to be suggesting that any communication that occurs between a campaign headquarters and a government office violates the law,” he said. “That is flatly incorrect.”

The emails involve Law Department employees working out Olens’ travel schedule as attorney general with campaign staffers eager to get the candidate in front of potential donors.

In August, campaign spokeswoman Sheri Kell exchanged messages with department spokeswoman Lauren Kane and Pat Witte, Olen’s executive assistant, about the attorney general’s planned appearances at high schools promoting his prescription drug abuse initiative. In one email, Witte tells campaign officials that Kane is setting up the appearances, but she promises to coordinate with the campaign.

“However, if we have any conflicts I will check with you first (and I promise to find equal time somewhere else on the calendar),” she wrote. “Also, if you will remind me at the end of September, I’ll get some dates secured in October.”

“Pat & Lauren: Please give us a list once you get the high schools set up,” Kell replied. “As we discussed with Sam yesterday, when he is in various counties for those events, if there is a donor he needs to meet with, it’s a good time to schedule it.”

The Hecht campaign got the emails through an open records request to Olens’ office. The campaign has not filed a complaint with the ethics commission, and it is unclear how far they would get if they did.

State law forbids public employees from making any contribution of time or effort to a political campaign while they are working for the state. But Stefan Passantino, a campaign finance expert with McKenna, Long and Aldridge, said one area of “overlap” is in scheduling an incumbent candidate’s appearances.

Passantino, who does work for the Georgia Republican Party but not specifically for Olens, said the public staff and the campaign have to figure out how to split the candidate’s time.

“For this reason, coordination of a schedule through a single scheduler is granted significantly more lenience than use of official staff to perform campaign functions such as research, speech writing, etc.,” he said.

Other emails walk a closer line and appear to show campaign matters getting high priority from Olens’ taxpayer-funded staffers. In April, the editor of the Atlanta Business Chronicle emailed Kane a link to an op-ed Olens penned on fighting prescription drug abuse. Kane received the email at 2:30 p.m. on April 22. Fourteen minutes later, she forwarded it to the campaign.

“Awesome!” Kell replied five minutes later. “Just tweeted and (placed it on Facebook). Great photo they keep using.”

Chalmers said nothing in the law forbids Kane from sending out information about the attorney general, regardless of who receives it.

“The spokesman of the Law Department is entitled to forward to anybody an op-ed piece about the official performance of his duties,” he said.

Chalmers said the Hecht campaign’s accusations amount to “throwing stones from a glass house” and noted that Hecht failed to list his fiduciary responsibility for his own law firm on the personal financial disclosure filed with the state ethics commission. Joe Cullar, Hecht’s campaign manager, said Hecht owns the law firm and disclosed that ownership on the same page of the form.

Cullar said the emails show Olens is using his state staffers to illegally boost his campaign.

“For an attorney general and the state’s top law enforcement officer, Sam Olens continues to amaze at his lack of understanding of the law,” he said.