Former Georgia Insurance Commissioner and gubernatorial hopeful John Oxendine had a campaign warchest that would have made most candidates jealous when he left political office in 2011, but legal costs are whittling away at that bankroll.
Oxendine’s latest disclosure report shows he spent more than $90,000 in legal expenses last year defending himself against state ethics commission complaints filed against him for his handling of his finances during his 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
In total, Oxendine’s campaign has now spent more than $150,000 defending himself against a series of charges, ranging from accusations that he took illegal contributions to a complaint that he spent donor money on races he never ran.
Some of the initial charges were dismissed in 2015, but others remain, and the Georgia Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case last week.
The Oxendine case is one of the most high-profile complaints the commission has worked on in the past few years. It is also important because some ethics watchdogs are concerned that if he is successful in court, it could lead to more politicians bypassing the state ethics commission when complaints are filed.
Oxendine, the one-time front-runner in the Republican race for governor in 2010, has been battling ethics complaints since 2009. Following an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report, a complaint was filed accusing two insurance companies of funneling $120,000 in illegal contributions to Oxendine’s gubernatorial campaign.
An ethics complaint against the insurers for giving the money was dismissed in 2014 because the ethics commission’s staff had made so little progress on it. But the commission didn’t dismiss charges against Oxendine, the recipient of the donations.
Since the original complaint was filed, the commission has gone through several executive directors and key staffers, some high-pro-file whistleblower lawsuits and a fluctuating budget. At times, almost no work was getting done on ethics complaints.
Meanwhile, Oxendine's case remained largely dormant until the AJC reported in 2015 that he failed to return more than $500,000 worth of leftover contributions from his gubernatorial bid and spent money raised for Republican runoff and general election campaigns that he never ran because he lost the primary. Oxendine later amended his reports to show more than $700,000 left over.
Following the AJC report, ethics commission staffers filed an amended complaint against Oxendine, accusing him of improperly spending more than $208,000 raised for the runoff and general elections and accepting more than the legal limit in contributions from 19 donors.
The commission dismissed many of the charges in December 2015 after his lawyer, Douglas Chalmers, argued that the statute of limitations had run out on charges involving the 2010 campaign.
But the commission kept alive the allegations that he took illegal contributions from the insurance companies and spent money raised for races he never ran, rather than returning it to donors.
Ethics officials said late last year that they may file new allegations against Oxendine over his decision to "invest" $237,000 in leftover campaign money in his own law firm.
The latest disclosure report showed Oxendine still has $587,000 left in his campaign fund. Since the case could wind up going to the Georgia Supreme Court, at least some of that will likely be spent on legal fees before any donors get refunds.
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