ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate’s Republican majority voted along party lines Thursday to investigate groups founded by former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams after they agreed to pay the largest campaign finance fine in state history.
The New Georgia Project and a separate fundraising arm, the New Georgia Action Fund, agreed to pay $300,000 for failing to disclose $4.2 million in contributions and $3.2 million in spending during the 2018 election cycle on behalf of Abrams’ unsuccessful bid for governor.
A special committee of the Georgia Senate that has been investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will now be empowered to expand its work to include Abrams.
The committee can administer oaths, call witnesses, require production of documents and issue subpoenas.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, the chairman of that committee, said the expanded mission is needed “to keep the dark money out of our political campaigns.”
Democrats have called the committee political grandstanding.
The Senate should be focused on access to affordable medical care and public education instead of “wasting” taxpayer dollars on this investigation, said Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta.
“When I read bills like this, all I can do is shake my head because this is a glaring example of hypocrisy in this building,” he said. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Senate Resolution 292 to expand the authority of the Special Committee on Investigations passed 33-21 along party lines.
The committee was created last year in the wake of Republican anger over Willis’ criminal case against President Donald Trump and others who helped his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.