A federal judge rejected for now a bid by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to gain more spending power in the state’s Republican race for governor, according to a ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross. The decision upheld campaign finance rules that Raffensperger and his allies said operate unevenly between his committee and those tied to another candidate.
Raffensperger’s independent political action committee, Safe Affordable Georgia, filed a federal lawsuit in December seeking permission to raise unlimited funds for his campaign. One of Raffensperger’s GOP primary opponents, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, has been able to do so under a 2021 state law that created leadership committees like the one Jones chairs, according to the lawsuit described in the court record.
Safe Affordable Georgia argued that the current law violates Raffensperger’s First Amendment rights by subjecting him to different rules than his opponent and asked Ross to waive the limits on his committee during the ongoing campaign. In her order issued Tuesday, Ross said Safe Affordable Georgia’s arguments did not meet the legal standard for her to grant the requested relief.
In the same ruling, Ross acknowledged that the law’s special treatment for Jones’ leadership committee appears likely unconstitutional. Raffensperger appealed the decision, the AP reported.
The 2021 law permits leadership committees to raise money year-round for a variety of election-related activities and for candidates including the chairperson’s own bid for office. The chairperson requirement — that the chair be the governor, lieutenant governor, party nominees for those offices, or legislative leaders — gives the officeholders holding those roles a potentially significant fundraising advantage when they run themselves, the report said.
Safe Affordable Georgia said the rules should be applied equally. “Hardworking Georgians deserve elections where the rules are the same for everyone, no matter what title or office you hold,” the committee said in a statement. “That’s what the Constitution requires, and that’s why we’ll keep fighting in Court to do what’s in the best interest of Georgia voters.”
David Dove, an attorney for the state, argued in court that if Ross allowed Raffensperger’s committee to skirt Georgia’s campaign finance law, courts would see similar requests that could open the door to “dark money.” Dove said such a change would “totally upend the way Georgia can regulate campaign finance,” and warned there would be “no end to where the total number of committees could end up under this regime.”
Charles Miller, a lawyer for Safe Affordable Georgia, argued legislators were not concerned about corruption when they allowed top state officials to raise unlimited sums through leadership committees. Miller said, therefore, lawmakers should not be concerned about corruption in other committees, the AP reported.
The AP report said Jones’ leadership committee received $100,000 in contributions from four sources and around 60 donations of $10,000 or more, as Safe Affordable Georgia noted in court records. The report also said candidate committees can raise a maximum of $8,400 from each donor.
The dispute has also intersected with other legal challenges. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr cited a related federal court ruling in a lawsuit that sought to prevent Jones from raising money through his leadership committee, but the judge dismissed Carr’s suit in August, ruling that Carr should have challenged the constitutionality of the law. The report said Carr’s supporters later set up an independent committee that cannot coordinate with Carr’s campaign.
The report further said an opinion adopted by the Georgia Ethics Commission in December found that Jones was allowed to loan $10 million to his leadership committee, even though Carr alleged the arrangement evaded campaign finance restrictions. It said the opinion cleared Jones to keep spending his family fortune and that Jones filed documents showing he made loans of $7.5 million and $2.5 million to the WBJ Leadership Committee when he announced his run for governor on July 8.
The dispute comes as Republicans in Georgia continue battling for the party’s nomination, with Raffensperger previously facing national scrutiny over his handling of the 2020 presidential election.