The bills advance as several of their Senate sponsors are campaigning for statewide office ahead of May 19 Republican primaries, and the investigation that drove their passage has yielded limited formal results — of 140 complaints filed with the commission in 2025, only three were not dismissed.
Georgia’s Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation Friday expanding the grounds for disciplining or removing local prosecutors, as Republican leaders pointed to the dismissed criminal case against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as evidence the oversight is needed.
The lead measure extends the authority of the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission, a body the Legislature created in 2024 to oversee elected district attorneys and solicitors general. Its fate in the Republican-controlled House, which is considered less partisan than the Senate, remains uncertain.
Several of the measure’s Senate sponsors are campaigning for statewide office ahead of May 19 Republican primaries, and the investigation that drove their push has yielded limited formal results — of 140 complaints filed with the commission in 2025, only three were not dismissed.
What the bill does
Under the measure, the commission could discipline prosecutors for violating bar rules, failing to notify crime victims of significant decisions, failing to comply with public records requests, or showing “undue bias or prejudice” against defendants.
State Sen. Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican who is running for attorney general, denied the bill targeted Willis. “There was quite a bit of evidence presented to us, and testimony about conduct of prosecutors and really the lack of public faith in the independence and the impartiality of the prosecuting attorneys in the state,” Cowsert said.
Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has been endorsed by Trump in his run for governor, said in a statement that the Willis case showed the commission’s value. “Fani Willis’ lawfare of President Trump and his allies has highlighted why oversight by the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission is vital,” Jones said. “This bill gives the PAQC the ability to go after DAs who refuse to be transparent, who engage in unprofessional attorney conduct, and who don’t take seriously their duties to victims of crimes.”
Background
Willis, a Democrat, obtained a racketeering indictment in August 2023 against then-President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Courts later barred Willis and her office from pursuing the case because of an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. The case was dismissed in November.
The state Senate created the Special Committee on Investigations in January 2024 to examine allegations of misconduct against Willis regarding her prosecution of Trump. Willis appeared before the committee in December, where she engaged in a combative exchange with Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from the Atlanta suburbs who is running for lieutenant governor.
Earlier in the session, senators passed a separate bill to enhance the commission’s investigatory powers. But the investigation has produced little formal action to date. Of 140 complaints filed with the commission in 2025, only three — related complaints about the same solicitor general in a rural county — were not dismissed. Washington County Solicitor General Michael Howard resigned in July while under investigation, agreeing to never run for a prosecutor post again.
Other measures
Two additional proposals reached the Senate floor Friday with different outcomes.
A measure that would have required district attorneys and some other county officials in five Democratic-dominated metro Atlanta counties — including Willis — to run on nonpartisan ballots was defeated after eight Republicans joined Democrats in voting against it. Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican from Acworth, had argued that nonpartisan officials would be more effective and efficient.
A third measure, originally drafted to allow Georgia’s attorney general to intervene in serious criminal cases without a district attorney’s consent, passed only after Cowsert amended it to allow district attorneys to request assistance instead — a change that drew Democratic support for the bill.