Underfunded ethics commission makes mistakes

Underfunding of Georgia's ethics commission has led to numerous inappropriate fines, some of which are still being straightened out after many months. Maybe the legislature should fund the ethics commission to a working level and make it independent of the legislature.

David Rodock wrote for the VDT 29 September 2011, Transparency Confusion: New campaign contributions system leads to officials owing fines,

The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Commission posted a seven-page list online earlier this week ethics.ga.gov of local government officials who have supposedly failed to submit their campaign contribution information this year.

According to the state organization's website, each late filer owes fines of different amounts.

Various elected officials were quoted in that article saying the fines were inappropriate. Many of those fines had already been removed from the list by the time that article was written.

There have been calls to properly fund that agency and to make it independent of the legislature. The Columbus Ledger-Inquirer wrote 25 January 2012, Ethics panel needs funding and independence,

The Georgia Senate's minority chair is proposing that a Republican-controlled General Assembly give up its power over the state's ethics watchdog agency.

Good luck with that.

A Republican introducing the same bill 10 years ago, when Democrats were firmly in control of both houses of the state legislature, would probably have faced about the same odds, which is to say long indeed. In any case, regardless of how little chance of success this proposal has, it's worthy of responsible consideration.

Good luck with that, indeed. SB 315 never got anywhere.

My name was also on that fine list, and it took until this week to get somebody in Atlanta to answer the phone and do something about it.

Meanwhile they took down their old website http://www.ethics.state.ga.us/ and changed it to ethics.ga.gov Tuesday Gretchen finally got someone on the phone at 404-463-1980:

First I talked to Samantha but she transferred me to Maria Bazille

As if a miracle, searching now does not show any late fees.

They said they wouldn't email us anything, but they did:

From: "Jenkins, Samantha" <sjenkins@ethics.ga.gov>
To: "campaign@jsq4lcc.com"
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:54:19 -0400
Subject: Late Fees

Good afternoon,

We have inactivated the late fees for the 6/30/2011, 12/31/2011 and the PFD 2011. You do not owe any late fees. If you have further questions or concerns please contact me.

Thanks,

Samantha Jenkins
Education Support Specialist/Lobbyist Registrar
Campaign Finance Commission

[etc.]

How well did I serve you? Contact my supervisor bgodwin@ethics.ga.gov

Pretty well, I'd say, once we finally got somebody to answer.

Look at poor Samantha's signature:

Education Support Specialist/Lobbyist Registrar
Campaign Finance Commission

She gets to do so many things her job position is hyphenated, and she hasn't even had time to update it to the latest permutation of the official name (The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Commission).

We also got Tuesday, many months after it was filed, a confirmation message saying:

This is confirmation that John S. Quarterman has filed a CCDR Report with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.

The following is to acknowledge the submission and receipt of your electronic filing.

Report: 2011 Final Report and Termination Statement
Submitted: 1/3/2012 3:50:35 PM

I would guess that's the "automated" notice we should have gotten in January, which is when we filed this piece which we were told last June we didn't need to file since it was a local campaign.

But the legislature insisted on implementing an "automated" system that centralizes campaign finance filings in Atlanta, while apparently supplying less funding to do it. Penny-wise and pound-foolish. Lots of local candidates who did everything right according to what they were told to do got stuck on a fine list, while fat cats in the legislature try to slip through loopholes for themselves which were only caught by legislators including Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-85 Atlanta) whom they had already gerrymandered into retiring.

No wonder Georgia comes in dead worst on corruption laws. Georgia #1 on lack of effective anti-corruption laws!

I agree with the Columbus newspaper:

Surely an effective, independent and adequately funded mechanism for disclosure and enforcement is a minimum civic obligation to the people of the state. And if the General Assembly still wants a role in the ethics process, then enacting some limits on what they can take from lobbyists would be a good start.

That will happen when we the voters make it happen.

-jsq