Stefan Ritter, an 18-year veteran of Georgia’s Attorney General’s Office, was elected Tuesday as the new head of the troubled state ethics commission, which has had four leaders in five-plus years.
Ritter, 54, a Decatur resident, was chosen over three other candidates in a unanimous vote of the commission, formally known as the Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.
Currently the head of the Attorney General’s Education, Elections, Local Government & Judiciary Section, Ritter for several years has served as the commission’s assigned legal counsel. He also has extensive knowledge of the state’s Open Records Act and Open Meetings Act. Ritter said his salary and start date had not yet been set.
Ritter vowed to help the beleaguered agency regain focus.
“My goal is going to make sure the commission is non-partisan, that it’s not going to be subject to outside pressure, that we’re going to get the work of the commission done by the law, by the regulations, by the book and we’re going to get it done efficiently and fast,” Ritter said Tuesday.
The commission has been without an executive director since September, when the board fired Holly LaBerge.
LaBerge's exit came after a Fulton County Superior Court judge sanctioned and fined her $10,000. Judge Ural Glanville said LaBerge had been "dishonest and nontransparent" over the course of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by her predecessor. LaBerge has appealed Glanville's order.
LaBerge’s dismissal represented the nadir for the commission and ended years of lawsuits, personnel complaints and general malaise that saw the agency’s work screech to a halt. A damning state audit followed a month later that detailed an agency is disarray.
There have been encouraging signs of late, however, particularly since the hiring last summer of two new staff attorneys that sparked a return of the actual work of the commission.
The other finalists for the job, chosen from 72 applications, were:
- Heather Ramsey Ryfa, a former senior assistant attorney general who now serves as chief staff attorney for the Governor's Office of Consumer Protection.
- Cheston Roney, court administrator and clerk for the City of Sandy Springs Municipal Court.
- Jeffrey Ledford, director of staff support for the Workforce Division of the Department of Economic Development. Ledford worked for the commission as a senior analyst from 1998 to 2004.
Commission Chairwoman Hillary Stringfellow, who led the search for an executive director, said Ritter’s deep knowledge of the agency’s work set him apart.
“Stefan is exceptionally well qualified for the position,” Stringfellow said. “We found him to be the most qualified — the most ready to hit the ground running.”
Ritter has defended the state in many high-profile cases as assistant attorney general, including a 2004-2005 effort to overturn Georgia's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. In 2010, he successfully fought a lawsuit challenging the Georgia Charter Schools Commission. A year later, he represented Gov. Nathan Deal in his effort to suspend the DeKalb County School Board in 2013 after an accreditation agency placed the school system on suspension.
But, Ritter has also been proactive in enforcing the state's rules requiring openness and transparency from government. He led the Attorney General's Office's efforts to force Atlanta Public Schools, the city of Savannah, the city of Cumming and others to follow the law.
He promised to bring that same attitude to the commission.
“There’s been a lot of complaints and certainly a court case about supposed partisan bias or strong-arming of the commission and we’re not going to have that,” Ritter said. “We’ve got an audit report to deal with, we’ve got staffing issues to address.
“We’re going to make sure everything is on the up and up and we’re going to make sure that citizens and candidates are all to use the commission the way they’re suppose to, easily.”
