A nonprofit organization founded by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams was slapped with a record fine for violating campaign finance laws.
The New Georgia Project, a voting rights group founded by Abrams in 2013 and later led by sitting Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., conceded that it raised and spent millions in support of Abrams’ failed campaign for governor — as well as other Democrats — and agreed to pay a $300,000 fine, the largest ever in the 38-year history of the Georgia Ethics Commission.
The New Georgia Project Action Fund, a related nonprofit, admitted the same and will also pay a $300,000 fine, an amount that’s roughly 10% of the money illegally spent.
Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to accept the resolution, ending a six-year battle with the Abrams-Warnock group that had repeatedly refused to cooperate.
"They’re now admitting everything we said was true," David Emadi, executive director of the ethics commission, told The New York Times, adding that the $3.2 million in spending by the groups was the "most amount of money that we’ve ever caught a group dumping to illegally influence our elections."
At issue is that the nonprofits paid for fliers and door-to-door canvassers telling voters to support Abrams and other Democrats, actions that run afoul of federal law for tax-exempt charities. The groups should have registered with the state as a political action committee but didn't.
"At a fundamental level, my clients understand and respect the commission’s decision on the facts of the law and we believe that this is a reasonable resolution of this longstanding dispute," David Fox, a lawyer for the nonprofits, said during Wednesday's ethics commission hearing.
The commission did not set out to punish Abrams or Warnock personally. Abrams left the group in 2017 while Warnock led the nonprofit from 2018 until his Senate campaign in 2020.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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