Longtime Douglas County District Attorney David McDade agreed to pay an $8,000 fine as part of an agreement to settle a campaign finance complaint filed against him by the state ethics commission.
The commission on Thursday approved the consent agreement with McDade, who served as Douglas County district attorney for more than 20 years.
He resigned in 2014 as part of a “non-prosecution” agreement reached as the GBI was wrapping up an investigation into misuse of funds.
The commission later filed an ethics complaint against him. David Emadi, the commission’s executive secretary and a former Douglas County prosecutor, said McDade failed to report five contributions to his campaign, failed on several occasions to file reports detailing his contributions and expenditures or filed them late, and illegally spent campaign money on flowers after he’d left office.
The commission also on Thursday dismissed a complaint against Gov. Roy Barnes and the Democratic Party of Georgia in a nearly decade-old case.
Barnes was the Democratic nominee for his old job in 2010, when he faced Republican Nathan Deal.
The executive director of the Georgia Republican Party at the time filed a complaint arguing that Barnes’ campaign received far more than the legal limit — $6,100 per election at the time — from the Democratic Party. The argument was that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising the party did that fall amounted to a contribution to Barnes’ campaign.
Emadi said the advertising did not constitute a contribution. Such advertising by parties on behalf of candidates is common. Deal beat Barnes in 2010, and the Republican Party spent big helping its nominee.
Stay on top of what’s happening in Georgia government and politics at www.ajc.com/politics.
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