Investigation into Abrams-linked group could spark new campaign laws
Campaign finance violations linked to Stacey Abrams’ 2018 Democratic campaign for governor may inspire new legislation aimed at curbing illegal election funding.
In January, the New Georgia Project — founded by Abrams — admitted it illegally raised and spent millions of dollars to support her candidacy, and the organization paid a record fine. The State Ethics Commission is still investigating whether Abrams’ campaign illegally coordinated with the organization.
But David Emadi, the commission’s executive director, told a state Senate panel Thursday he needs new tools to investigate such alleged violations, including the ability to interview witnesses under oath. The chairman of the Senate committee suggested he’s ready to give Emadi those tools.
“Essentially, we want to restore confidence in our election process,” Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, said after the meeting of the Senate Special Committee on Investigations.
The hearing shows the Republican-controlled Senate will continue to spotlight scandals linked to Georgia’s most prominent Democrats heading into what is likely to be a bitterly contested 2026 election for a slew of high-profile offices.
Abrams’ campaign declined to comment. Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, called Thursday’s hearing a “witch hunt.”
“As Georgians face health insurance premiums that have doubled and even tripled, the Senate should not be wasting time on political persecutions that have already been fully investigated elsewhere,” Jones said.
The Senate created Cowsert’s committee last year to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ conduct in the 2020 presidential election interference case. Willis, a Democrat, has been disqualified from the case because of a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor, and a state agency is expected to announce Friday whether another prosecutor will take on the case.
Earlier this year, senators expanded the committee’s mandate to focus on two groups linked to Abrams.
Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2013 to register Black, Hispanic, Asian and young voters. She stepped away from the group in 2017 to run for governor.
But an ethics commission investigation found the New Georgia Project illegally worked to get Abrams elected. It failed to disclose $4.2 million in campaign contributions and $3.2 million in expenditures.
In January, the group and an affiliate, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, admitted to 16 violations and paid a $300,000 fine — the largest ever assessed for violating Georgia campaign finance laws.
Emadi told the Senate panel his agency is still investigating whether Abrams’ campaign illegally coordinated campaign spending with the New Georgia Project.
Georgia law allows groups like the New Georgia Project to spend unlimited money to support candidates. But they must do so independently of the candidates’ campaigns. If they do coordinate, candidates must report such expenditures as contributions, and they’re subject to strict limits.
Emadi told the committee that allegations of coordination are difficult to prove. He said his investigators had reviewed correspondence between Abrams’ campaign and the New Georgia Project, but it was “not terribly substantive.”
Emadi said the ability to interview witnesses under oath would help, as would a clear definition of “coordination” in state law.
Cowsert signaled he would be willing to support new laws creating those tools. He also said he’d consider making “knowing, willful violations” of campaign finance laws criminal offenses. Currently, such violations result only in civil penalties.
Jones, the Democratic leader, criticized the focus of Thursday’s hearing.
“Our focus must be on solving the affordability crisis, the housing crisis and the rapidly rising cost of utilities,” he said. “Georgians elected us to make their lives easier, not to subject our political opponents to state-funded witch hunts.”
Cowsert said the committee is charged with looking into “serious campaign law violations.”
“We wanted to know exactly what was done, what laws were violated and how we can tighten this up to give the public assurance in the future that our campaign finance laws are not circumvented like this,” he said.
The committee also is charged with investigating the details of a $2 billion U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to a coalition of clean energy groups called Power Forward Communities. Abrams previously served as a senior counsel for one of the groups, but the fact-checking group PolitiFact found no evidence that Abrams received any of the grant money.
About the Author
David Wickert writes about the state budget, finance and voting issues. Previously, he covered local government and politics in Gwinnett and Fulton counties. Before moving to Atlanta, he worked at newspapers in Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.
