A non-profit group founded by candidate Stacey Abrams has settled a complaint with the Georgia Ethics Commission and is suing the state for illegally spending millions of dollars to support Abrams’ gubernatorial bid in 2018. I’m going to pay $10,000.
The New Georgia Project and its fundraising arm, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, disclosed about $4.2 million in donations and $3.2 million in expenditures, according to a consent order made public Wednesday after the Ethics Committee’s approval vote. I didn’t. It was largely used to support Abrams in the 2018 primary and general election.
The order details 16 violations of state law, including the group’s failure to register with political committees, fail to file required public reports and fail to disclose millions of dollars in political contributions and expenditures. By agreeing to the consent order and paying the $300,000 fine, the New Georgia Project admits it violated the law, according to the order.
The consent order also details the New Georgia Project’s participation in advocating for a 2019 ballot initiative that would expand public transportation. The violations included more than $600,000 in donations and $173,000 in expenditures.
David Emadi, executive director of the Georgia Ethics Commission, said in a statement that the fine is the largest ever levied by the commission and could be the largest ever imposed by the state ethics commission in a campaign finance case.
“This fine is significant, but appropriate considering the extent to which state law was violated in this case,” Emadi said. “This represents the largest and most significant example of an organization illegally influencing Georgia elections that we have uncovered, and I believe it sends a clear message to both the public and potential bad actors that we will hold them accountable. ”
David Fox, who represented the New Georgia Project at the hearing, said the agreement was a “reasonable resolution” for something that happened years ago and that “the group is eager to move forward.”
At Wednesday’s ethics committee meeting, Emadi presented social media posts, checks, investigations and phone banking information as evidence of the New Georgia Project and Action Fund’s activities in support of Abrams in 2018. The presentation also showed routine overlap between the two groups.
The board unanimously approved the consent order.
The settlement concludes a multi-year investigation into the group’s activities that has been brought to court several times since 2019. The ethics committee issued a subpoena for the group’s banking records and amended its complaint in 2022 after a Georgia appeals court granted access to the statements.
In another case, the New Georgia Project attempted to block the Ethics Commission’s investigation, but in July 2024 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a district court ruling that had initially halted the investigation.
A 2023 POLITICO investigation found that the group’s former managing director, Nsé Ufot, owed the organization thousands of dollars in “non-work-related” repayments.
Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2014 as an offshoot of another nonprofit called Third Sector Development. Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock chaired the organization for more than two years, from when it first became an independent 501(c)3 in 2017 until January 2020.
A representative for Abrams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
