Gov. Brian Kemp has appointed a longtime campaign donor to Georgia’s ethics commission.
Such an announcement in itself may not be surprising: Governors have always appointed donors to boards.
But the appointment Kemp made late last week comes as the commission is continuing its investigation into Democrat Stacey Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign and groups it says may have illegally coordinated with the candidate’s bid for office. Abrams is the Democratic gubernatorial nominee-in-waiting this year, and she will face Kemp or his top GOP challenger, ex-U.S. Sen. David Perdue, in the general election.
And Atlanta attorney David Burge replaces on the board Eric Barnum, the only member of the ethics panel to contribute to Abrams’ campaign. Barnum’s term was up, and he served his last meeting in March.
Under state law, the governor appoints three members — only two of whom can be from his party — and the Senate leaders and House speaker get the other two appointments. Kemp had replaced an outgoing Republican member with a Democrat last year.
Burge is a partner with Smith Gambrell Russell, where he has worked in real estate law since 1998. He has served as a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Elections and was a delegate to the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Burge said he didn’t apply for the job. “They called me and asked if I would be willing to serve,” he said.
He also said he’s well aware that 2022 is an election year and all that entails. Election years are typically busy for the commission.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of campaign reports shows Burge has contributed to Kemp more than three dozen times since 2006, when the governor was then running for agriculture commissioner. Most of the contributions were relatively small. Burge also contributed to the reelection campaign of Gov. Sonny Perdue that year. Perdue later appointed Kemp to the job of secretary of state.
Living in a Democratic city, Burge has also contributed to some Democrats, including state Sens. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta; and Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain; Jason Carter when he ran for governor in 2014; and then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
Since its inception in the early 1990s, politicians have griped about complaints being filed with the ethics commission — which regulates campaign finance laws — for partisan purposes. Many of the purely partisan election-year complaints wind up being dismissed by the commission or result in minor penalties, but they often get headlines.
Members of the panel, and sometimes staff, are used to being criticized as partisans.
Democrats complained in 2019 when the panel hired David Emadi, a Douglas County prosecutor, to become the commission’s executive secretary because he’d been a Kemp donor.
The chairman of the commission at the time, Jake Evans, had long been a Republican Party activist. Evans left the commission and is running as a Republican for a suburban Atlanta congressional seat.
Barnum contributed $3,350 to Abrams’ 2018 campaign. Another commission member, Rick Thompson, is paid to file campaign reports and create political action committees and other fundraising entities for candidates and groups.
Campaign reports show Burge has contributed about $8,500 to Kemp campaigns over the years.
Shortly after he took office, Emadi began issuing subpoenas seeking bank and other records from Abrams’ campaign and affiliated groups.
Abrams’ camp says it has provided thousands of documents to the commission and that the panel was seeking records that either didn’t exist or should have no bearing on its case. Her top campaign aide, Lauren Groh-Wargo, called it a “fishing expedition.”
The commission is looking into whether Abrams’ campaign illegally coordinated its efforts with nonprofits supporting her bid for governor. Georgia law prohibits independent groups from coordinating with candidates.
One of the groups, Gente4Abrams (People for Abrams), was fined $50,000 by the state ethics commission in 2020 for failing to report what it spent to help her win the Democratic primary.
Gente4Abrams (People for Abrams) spent $240,000 for canvassing, social media posts, and print and radio advertising to help Abrams win the primary but didn’t report what it spent or where it got the money to pay for those efforts, the commission said.
The group later registered with the state and reported spending about $685,000 more to help the Democrat in her unsuccessful general election campaign against Kemp.
