The 2021 law was called the “Ethics in Government Act,” which should have been the first clue that Georgia’s politicos were up to no good.
Faced with a Stacey Abrams Democratic fundraising juggernaut in 2022, Republicans at the state Capitol moved to give themselves some juice of their own — new campaign accounts called “leadership committees” that would be able to accept donations all year-round. The accounts allowed them to avoid the fundraising ban during Georgia’s annual three-month legislative session that Abrams did not have to abide by as she had already left the Legislature.
The new law also would get around campaign finance limits by declaring that leadership committees could take unlimited donations and that the money could be used for any race, any candidate, any issue, at any time.
To make the bill more palatable for Democrats and the inevitable legal challenges to come, the bill also stipulated that, along with the governor, lieutenant governor and state legislative leaders of both parties, the eventual Democratic nominee for governor and lieutenant governor would be able to have their own leadership committee, too.
At the time, ethics watchdogs warned that the new law would send Georgia elections into the “Wild West,” with unknown consequences on campaigns and voters for years to come.
Four years down the road, we now know the leadership committees have given the most powerful leaders in the state a huge leg up in their own campaigns, while their primary challengers, rank-and-file members of the General Assembly and first-time candidates are left to fend for themselves under the old rules.
“It’s really an incumbency protection act,” said Jen Jordan, a former state senator and Democratic candidate for attorney general in 2022. “It has allowed people to get around the campaign finance laws that apply to other people, specifically the other people that they’re running against.”
Bryan Sells, an Atlanta attorney who challenged the law on behalf of the Libertarian Party, said the law creates different rules for different candidates in the same race.
“Under the law, some candidates in the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s races can raise and spend more money than others, and that’s just not how it’s supposed to be,” he said.
The clearest example of the lopsided playing field the leadership committee law created is happening right now in the Georgia governor’s race, where Lt. Gov. Burt Jones has been able to raise unlimited donations for his campaign for governor through his lieutenant governor’s leadership committee.
At the same time, his primary rivals without leadership committees, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, are bound by campaign finance limits for the gubernatorial campaigns of $13,200 from an individual donor for the entire campaign.
The result has been Jones kicking off his campaign with more than $14 million in his leadership committee, including a $10 million loan to himself and five- and six-figure donations from plenty of others. Carr, meanwhile, reported raising about $3.4 million from limited individual donations.
Carr is under the gun to raise what he can before January, when he is barred by state law from raising money. Jones’ leadership committee is not.
Along with giving incumbents like Jones a huge edge in fundraising for their own future races, the leadership committees have also given Gov. Brian Kemp another tool to consolidate his power, especially during the legislative session. Earlier this year, instead of simply calling on members to pass his top priority — the litigation overhaul package — Kemp made it known that he would use money from his Georgians First leadership committee to run ads against fellow Republicans who opposed him on the bill.
“He has a political infrastructure and a political organization that is committed to supporting his priorities,” Cody Hall, Kemp’s top political adviser, said at the time. “And we’re going to make darn sure that folks that were with us are supported. But we’re also going to make sure that voters are reminded of those who do not stand with him.”
Ironically, Jones was one of a handful of Republican senators in 2021 who voted against the leadership committee bill in the first place. He, along with Brandon Beach (then a state senator, now the U.S. treasurer) and state Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, were on the outs with GOP leaders at the time and all voted against giving them even more power through the special fundraising accounts.
Dolezal even introduced a second bill in 2022 to prevent the committees from accepting donations during the legislative session “to prevent the appearance” of impropriety for lawmakers taking cash during the session. That bill failed.
As expected, the leadership committees have been the subject of multiple lawsuits from Democrats, third-party groups and Republicans, including Carr, but none have had the law invalidated.
Carr’s office defended the original law in court, and he said he’s only opposed to Jones using his committee funds in the governor’s race. “I’m actually not opposed to the leadership (committee) act law, but I am opposed to Burt Jones using it illegally and improperly to benefit himself politically and personally,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Jones responded, “This is simply another desperate attempt for attention from a candidate stuck in third place.”
Whoever said the leadership committees would send Georgia elections politics into “the Wild West of politics,” was not quite right. In reality, the committees have been a road map — and a full tank of gas — for how the West was won.
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