by Ty Tagami | Feb 18, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A Republican activist and former employee of a family-run financial firm accused of bilking mostly conservative investors out of millions of dollars could face criminal prosecution after the Georgia Secretary of State’s office referred his case to a local prosecutor Wednesday.
Edwin Brant Frost V, former chairman of the Coweta County Republican Party, was also fined $500,000 by the state agency in connection with his alleged actions at First Liberty Building & Loan.
Frost is the son of the firm’s founder, Edwin Brant Frost IV.
“First Liberty misappropriated investors’ funds by failing to use investor funds as it represented to investors,” said the order issued by an assistant commissioner for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
The agency referred its investigative file for potential prosecution to the Coweta County district attorney and sent it to the Georgia Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, where Frost V holds an insurance agent license, according to the order.
Frost V’s lawyer, Christopher J. Huber, said his client denies the allegations.
“The Secretary of State did not provide him an opportunity to address his baseless accusations before rushing to judgment and to the press,” Huber said by email.
The Coweta district attorney’s office had no immediate comment. The insurance commissioner’s office did not immediately respond to queries about the case.
Frost V is accused of interacting with investors without the required registrations as a broker dealer agent and as an investment adviser representative. The secretary of state’s order also said he failed to disclose risk to investors and made unsuitable recommendations while personally profiting by investing in loan agreements that he then solicited to investors.
The order said he received $47,000 in bonuses and $88,000 in commissions and was receiving $4,000 a month from First Liberty by November 2023.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused First Liberty of operating a Ponzi scheme with investor funds, saying in a lawsuit last year that the company and Frost IV had raised at least $140 million from about 300 investors, funneling at least $5 million to the family and more than $570,000 to political contributions.
Raffensperger, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, last year called on recipients to return campaign contributions from First Liberty and the Frost family.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 17, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers are again targeting corporate landlords in a bid to address housing costs during an election year when voters are concerned about affordability.
“I have a grave fear that we are becoming a nation of renters and not homeowners,” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, who is running for lieutenant governor.
Regular home buyers do not have the deep pockets to compete with institutional investors when trying to buy a home, he said. His solution is Senate Bill 463, which would cap corporate ownership at 500 single-family rental homes.
A Senate committee passed his measure Tuesday despite industry opposition.
SB 463 would allow tenants and other aggrieved parties to sue if they found that a corporation was in violation of the ownership limit. Dolezal said that would skirt constitutional challenges against state overreach with direct enforcement.
But Austin Hackney, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Georgia, still questioned whether that would pass legal muster.
The use of lawsuits rather than state enforcement is “walking a constitutional tightrope” rarely seen in legislation, Hackney said, adding it “is a strong indicator that that the right to private property is on the chopping block here.”
A critic representing Realtors said they oppose the bill because it would affect “mom and pop” Georgia landlords who had amassed “generational wealth” through real estate.
Current owners of more than 500 homes would be held harmless by the legislation.
The bill also targets foreign owners because, Dolezal said, “we are trying to prevent foreign entities from buying American homes that we believe should be for American families to own.”
The measure now moves to the full Senate. The House already has similar legislation.
House Bill 555 sought to limit companies from having an ownership interest in more than 2,000 single-family residences or 10 multifamily residences in Georgia. A House committee approved it last March despite constitutional concerns. It has not had another hearing.
The issue has become bipartisan.
Lawmakers passed a more limited measure into law last year that was led by a Democrat. House Bill 399, by Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, required out-of-state investors, such as hedge funds, to have a local broker and property manager for their Georgia rental properties.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is fending off a Republican challenge for his seat, launched a public inquiry last spring into the way corporate landlords treat tenants.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 17, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s main electric power monopoly filed requests with state regulators Tuesday to set new billing rates for customers that will recover the cost of storm-related repairs and adjust for changes in fuel prices.
The company said its new rate requests will “protect customers from future fuel price volatility” by locking in prices for future supply while also reducing bills. The company burns coal and natural gas to make electricity that it transmits to customers.
Hurricane Helene lashed Georgia in late 2024, causing major losses for agriculture and other sectors. Georgia Power said nearly $800 million of the $912 million in storm damage it wants to bill customers for over the next four years was caused by Helene.
Georgia Power is allowed to pass on recovery and fuel costs to customers, but it must have permission from the Georgia Public Service Commission, the elected body that regulates utilities.
So the company filed documents with the agency that make the case for adjusting its billing rates. It said favorable fuel costs would benefit customers.
“If approved, expected fuel savings will be more than enough to offset storm costs resulting in a 1 percent rate decrease for the average retail customer, and savings of approximately $1.32 per month for the typical residential customer using an average of 1,000 kWh per month,” Georgia Power said in a statement.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 17, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A Republican incumbent on the Georgia Public Service Commission announced Tuesday that she will not stand for reelection, just months after two Democrats ejected two GOP incumbents with decisive electoral victories.
Tricia Pridemore, appointed in 2018 and up for reelection this year, announced on social media that she was considering a run for Congress rather than for another term on the agency that regulates monopoly utilities such as Georgia Power.
“This decision comes after deep reflection and with profound gratitude for the honor of serving our great state,” she said in her statement.
Pridemore voted in December with the rest of the five-member PSC to approve a controversial 10 gigawatt expansion for Georgia Power, mostly to serve anticipated demand from data centers.
Among the other four members who voted with Pridemore were Republicans Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson. The pair had lost their seats in November to Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard, who powered their way to upset victories by channeling frustration over the cost of living.
Both Republicans had voted in recent years to approve a series of utility rate increases that hit voters’ in the pocketbook.
When the two new Democrats succeeded the two outgoing Republicans last month, the GOP was left with a one-vote margin. Pridemore’s decision to stand down, leaves the future balance of power uncertain.
The commissioners must live within their PSC district, but they each stand for election statewide.
Pridemore said she was considering a run for the northwest metro Atlanta U.S. House seat held by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who recently announced that he will not be running for reelection.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 16, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — An income tax cutting proposal designed by Georgia’s Senate Republicans to address the election year affordability issue would also cut into the supply of new housing for low wage earners, potentially harming some of the same people it would help.
Senate Bill 476, approved by the Senate last week, would return billions a year to taxpayers, and it would pay for that by reducing and then eliminating some $30 billion in tax credits and exemptions.
A chunk of that money goes to developers as a match that doubles the value of federal credits to build apartments that rent at below market rates. The credit gets paid over a 10-year period, so developers with newer projects would see their balance sheets go from black to red as they lost future credits that helped to make those projects feasible.
That would mean less housing for restaurant workers, school cafeteria employees and janitors, said Ken Blankenship, a developer who taps the credits.
“Where is that money going to come from? I’m not going to put it in. I’m going to foreclose on the property,” he said. “It is a financial disaster for our industry. Now, you take my deal and multiply that times 50 or 60 deals that are under construction right now,” said Blankenship, who is president of the Georgia Affordable Housing Coalition.
Lawmakers established the credit in 2000. A 2022 review of the program requested by the state Senate estimated that developers would claim $331 million in credits in fiscal year 2023 alone.
A summary of the review by the Department of Audits and Accounts said projects financed with the credits produced an estimated 19,500 jobs, mostly in construction, that paid about $1.7 billion in labor income. The summary also said much of the economic activity would have occurred without the tax giveaway. It noted, though, that “existing research has pointed to personal and public benefits from safe and secure long-term housing.”
The credit is only for below-market rental properties where a substantial portion of the renters earn 60% or less of the median income.
Under SB 476, the state tax credit would drop to half the federal credit in January before being abolished in 2032.
Blankenship said that in addition to bankrupting some developers in the near term, the loss of state funding would cause a long-term slowdown in construction of housing for people who struggle to make ends meet.
Those are the same people that Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said he wanted to help when he crafted SB 476, which he likened to a pay raise for the middle class.
The legislation would use the revenue saved from tax credits to increase the state income tax standard deduction to $50,000 for an individual and $100,000 for a married couple, up from the current $12,000 and $24,000.
“I stand with those families making less than $100,000 and a yes vote fully supports them,” Tillery said Thursday on the Senate floor before the measure passed, mostly along party lines. He said firefighters, teachers, lunch counter workers and janitors would benefit the most.
The downsizing of the state subsidy would come amid an abiding shortage in affordable housing that a leading economic forecaster expected to endure at least through this year.
“Activity is depressed because affordability is at record lows, few people are desperate to buy or to sell, economic uncertainly is high, and almost nobody’s moving,” said the 43rd annual economic forecast by the Selig Center for Economic Growth.
The report by the Center, based at the University of Georgia’s business school, said construction finances were squeezed between two federal policies: elevated material costs due to tariffs and a labor shortage due to stricter immigration enforcement.
“Since we do not expect these negative factors to change very much in 2026, the homebuilding and real estate industries will remain in recession,” said the report, released late last year.
It is unclear how far the Senate will get with its tax cutting proposal. To become law, it would need approval by the state House and then by Gov. Brian Kemp.
The House has its own tax-cutting proposal focused on local property taxes. Kemp wants to reduce the income tax rate a fifth of a percentage point to 4.99%, which is something SB 476 also does.
But the governor proposed neither increasing the standard deduction nor cutting tax credits to pay for it — both cornerstones of the legislation.
Kemp’s state economist, Robert Buschman, was asked about approaches to reducing the income tax during a legislative budget hearing in January. Buschman praised Kemp’s approach of slowly lowering the tax rate based on “structural” revenue surpluses, but he also said culling ineffective tax credits to pay for continued lowering of the rate “would be a wonderful thing.”
He did not specify whether any particular credit, such as the affordable housing credit, was ineffective. But he was the lead co-author of the 2022 state review of that credit.
