Many candidates for public office send thank-you notes to campaign donors after ballots have been counted.
State Rep. Michael Caldwell, R-Woodstock, adds a little something extra: a check.
Caldwell, 27, has refunded more than $12,000 to his campaign contributors since first winning a seat in the General Assembly in 2012. It’s a practice he started following his first, losing, bid for the House in 2010, and it’s one that a good-government group called the “gold standard” for how campaigns should operate.
From 2012 through 2014, Caldwell raised more than $32,000. He refunded nearly 40 percent of that to donors. (Final 2016 figures have yet to be reported.)
“The reason I do it is to give people the opportunity to decide for themselves and decide what happens with their money,” Caldwell said in a recent interview.
Caldwell hopes that decision is easy.
“In a perfect world everybody sends the check right back,” he said.
Maureen Wolff, a Caldwell donor from Woodstock, received a refund check in the mail Wednesday. She did not send it back.
“We got it today,” Wolff said. “And cut it up today.”
Wolff wants Caldwell to have her money “if he ever needs it.”
“He’s just amazing,” she said. “Absolutely amazing person.”
Since first starting the practice in 2010, Caldwell said only two donors have failed to either return his refund or to tear up his check.
“One cashed his check and one asked it go to charity,” he said. The pair totaled about $10, Caldwell said.
Back in 2010, when he was barely old enough to drink legally, Caldwell and some friends brainstormed what a “perfect” campaign would look like. The list included a ban on contributions from political action committees, lobbyists and anyone from out of state. It also included the contribution refund idea. He adopted all those ideas.
Although he lost that 2010 primary campaign to then-Rep. Charlice Byrd, R-Woodstock, Caldwell also kept his word.
“I don’t believe in war chests,” he said.
William Perry, the executive director of Georgia Ethics Watchdogs, said Caldwell deserves praise.
“Representative Caldwell sets the gold standard for the way leftover campaign funds should be handled,” Perry said.
With the refunds and his personal ban on special-interest money, Caldwell has his priorities straight, Perry said.
It “leaves his constituency and supporters the only groups he has to answer to,” Perry said. “These are the kind of actions that can help restore the public’s trust in politicians.”
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