Georgia lawmakers advanced a pair of bills Friday that will allow hundreds of local politicians a way clear out of fines for failing to file campaign reports on time.
Senate Bill 127 and House Bill 370, both of which passed their chambers of origin by wide margins and with bipartisan support, create a "rebuttable presumption" of innocence for city and county politicians who owe late fees for reports submitted to the state ethics commission.
“Bad actors will still be fined,” said Sen. Rick Jeffares, R-McDonough, sponsor of the Senate bill.
In addition to the fine forgiveness provision, the House bill has some campaign finance provisions that some good government watchdogs say turns it into an “incumbent protection” bill.
HB 370 would allow the party caucuses in the House and Senate to contribute unlimited amounts of campaign cash in support of a party ticket or “a group of named candidates.” Currently, only political parties can make such unlimited contributions, while caucuses must funnel their cash through the party to escape limits.
Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, downplayed the change as simply eliminating a step in the process. But if they are allowed to directly contribute large sums, legislative caucuses could get involved in supporting incumbents in tough primary fights — something the state parties do not do.
Compared to its Senate counterpart, HB 370 also provides near iron-clad protection for local officials wanting their fines to go away. The bill requires ethics commission attorneys to prove officials “knowingly and willfully” refused to file their campaign reports on time — a legal hurdle of proof nearly impossible to leap over.
Senators discarded that language in their own bill and replaced it with a lower standard of proof.
The problems for local officials started in 2010 when an ethics reform law required local politicians to file campaign finance reports and personal financial disclosures electronically with the state ethics commission. Between then and 2014, when the Legislature changed the law again, hundreds of mayors, school board members and other local politicians racked up fines sometimes totalling thousands of dollars for failing to file their reports on time.
Fleming said computer problems and management struggles at the ethics commission caused many of the problems and local politicians need the protection. In committee hearings on the Senate bill, lawyers for the ethics commission pushed back, saying local officials already had a method of appealing the fines before an administrative law judge.
The House version of the bill passed 166-6. The Senate bill passed 48-4.
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