In the fall of 2022, the Georgia State Ethics Commission opened a file against Savannah civil-rights veteran and state lawmaker Carl Gilliard. The man with a reputation for social activism and feeding the poor had not submitted more than nine mandatory campaign and personal finance reports between 2020 and 2023.
Many of Georgia’s public officials who fall under the scrutiny of the ethics commission are newly elected and don’t understand how to comply with campaign finance and financial disclosure laws, according to Haley Barrett, the panel’s press secretary and open records officer.
That wasn’t the case with Gilliard, who has represented District 162 in the state House since 2016.
The 18-month-long ethics investigation, which found that the Democratic lawmaker had used tens of thousands of campaign donations for personal use, culminated earlier this month in a consent decree that prevents a more detailed accounting of what a commission lawyer described as “egregious” violations of Georgia’s campaign finance laws.
Gilliard, the former head of Georgia’s Black Legislative Caucus, agreed to pay a $17,000 fine. But, he was allowed to use campaign funds for the payment. He did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
His case, handled by Savannah lawyer Steven Scheer, shows a yearslong pattern of spending violations on questionable items and provides ammunition to Gilliard’s political opponent this fall as he seeks a fourth full term in the House.
‘Mistakenly believed’
The state ethics panel found that Gilliard “improperly used” more than $54,000 in campaign contributions in 2022 and failed the same year to disclose some 110 expenditures totaling more than $53,000.
Over a three-day period in 2022, for instance, those purchases from Savannah-and Atlanta-area stores included $199.01 at Sam’s Club, $269.15 at Berwick Ace Hardware, $188.88 at Walmart, $286.14 at On-Time Fashions, and $299.37 at K&G Atlanta — a total of more than $1,240, according to documents obtained by The Current from the state ethics commission.
Yet as startling as the commission’s findings may be, the outcome of its probe into Gilliard’s financial dealings could have been worse for the 60-year-old, three-term lawmaker from Garden City.
Following negotiations between commission staff and Gilliard’s lawyer, the amount that Gilliard is required to personally reimburse his campaign committee for his undisclosed expenditures was reduced from $54,775 to $30,000.
Finally, on the crucial issue of whether Gilliard was aware that his campaign finance reports had not been filed in more than three years, the commission accommodated Scheer’s demand that the lawmaker not be held totally at fault for the lapse.
In the June 17 consent order codifying the deal reached between Scheer and the commission, Gilliard acknowledges that he is “ultimately responsible” for ensuring that campaign finance reports and personal financial statements are filed on schedule.
It also states, incorporating language drafted by Scheer, that Gilliard “mistakenly believed the requisite reports were being filed by hired consultants.”
Lawyering up
Gilliard’s experience with the ethics body is unusual, said Barrett from the ethics panel. Most of the 54 people whose ethics complaints have been resolved by the state ethics commission so far this year didn’t retain attorneys. They didn’t need them, she said.
Gilliard had a powerful advocate representing him. Scheer, a named partner at a downtown Savannah law firm and Pooler’s city attorney, served as chairman of the ethics commission from 1995 to 1999.
As the panel issued one subpoena after another for Gilliard’s banking and campaign finance records and allegations of wrongdoing piled up, Scheer’s knowledge of the state’s ethics enforcement machinery paid off, copies of emails, text messages, and legal documents obtained by The Current from the commission show. He dug in.
Scheer told the commission in a July 7, 2023, letter, for instance, that his client lacked sufficient knowledge about the legal conclusions drawn by the commission in numerous instances of alleged wrongdoing and therefore denies them. He asked the commission to dismiss the matter.
Four months later, in response to seven fresh allegations of malfeasance leveled by the commission, Scheer replied that his client lacked “sufficient knowledge” about them. He again asked the commission to dismiss the case.
‘Feel-good language’
Under state law, the ethics commission can refer a case for criminal prosecution, but it’s a prerogative the panel has seldom exercised.
So, it was all but certain that Scheer and the commission would enter the negotiations that culminated in June’s consent order — the civil equivalent of a plea deal.
Those negotiations began in earnest no later than March, according to the documents provided to The Current by the ethics commission.
Over the course of the panel’s investigation, Gilliard had been invited to at least four quarterly meetings to rebut the allegations against him but didn’t attend — in at least one case because of a special session of the state legislature.
The commission announced in early May that its five-member board would hold its quarterly meeting in Dalton on June 17. One item on the agenda was Gilliard’s case.
Commission staff had prepared for the June meeting a PowerPoint presentation, laying out in detail how Gilliard and perhaps people close to him had spent campaign funds for their own benefit.
That appeared to quicken the speed of negotiations over the wording of the consent order, text messages and emails between Scheer and Steve Knittel, the commission’s deputy general counsel, indicate.
For Scheer, a focus of those exchanges was how to characterize Gilliard’s failure to file required campaign finance reports.
On June 7, he wrote Knittel, “Steve, I am trying to get you a proposed consent decree with some of the ‘feel-good’ language that admits wrongdoing but says really wasn’t all my fault but I acknowledge it is my fault legally etc. and I should have known better.”
Three days later, Knittel emailed the final draft of the consent order to Scheer and Gilliard for their signatures, closing his cover note with, “Thank you for your work on this.” In the next 48 hours, Scheer sent the commission a signed copy of the order and Gilliard’s check for $17,000.
Scheer had prevailed.
The “feel-good” language he sought and drafted ended up in the consent order. While Gilliard was “ultimately responsible” for the lax campaign record filing, the consent order would read that he didn’t know about it. It was the consultants’ fault.
A political price?
Although the ethics case is closed, it remains to be seen whether Gilliard will pay a political price for those breaches.
Before the fines became public, Gilliard was expected to easily defeat Republican Keith Padgett in his reelection race in November, in part due to his reputation as the pastor for the Miracle Life Christian Center and founder of Feed the Hungry.
Now, he leaves himself vulnerable to campaign attacks saying he’s not fit to oversee state budgets and tax dollars.
“Fairly substantial” is how Knittel, the ethics commission’s deputy counsel, described the sanctions against Gilliard during his testimony to the commission’s five-member board in Dalton last week.
This case, he said, “required a substantial penalty because it was fairly egregious as far as the amount of money that was used.”
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