ATLANTA — A Republican measure to limit out-of-state support of Georgia political campaigns passed a state House committee and is nearing final passage in the final days of this year’s legislative session.
Senate Bill 423 would make it a felony punishable by up to a decade in prison for an intermediary to launder money from out-of-state donors and give it to a local campaign.
The campaigns would have to return whatever portion of non-Georgia donations exceed their total local dollars raised, or the state would take the money.
It would be the responsibility of candidate’s campaigns to source the dollars and ensure they came from people who — or companies that — pay taxes in Georgia.
“What we’re saying is you can run the ads. We just want to know who you are,” said Sen. Tim Bearden, R-Carrollton, the sponsor of the bill.
The measure passed the Senate with opposition from Democrats in early March.
Rep. Martin Momtahan, R-Dallas, member of the House committee that passed the bill out of the House committee on a party-line vote Thursday, said it was a necessary measure to protect Georgians from out-of-state interests that want access to the state’s natural resources, such as water.
Rep. Solomon Adesanya, D-Marietta, countered that wealthy candidates who can self-fund their campaigns could escape the limitations by simply giving enough of their own money to match whatever they collected from outside Georgia.
“So this is going to be unfair,” he said. “This is actually not going to be protecting Georgia. It’s going to give a certain candidate who can self-fund an … advantage.”
He didn’t name names, but two GOP candidates for Georgia governor — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and businessman Rick Jackson — have reservoirs of personal money that they can tap for their campaigns.
When Rep. Rhonda Burnough, D-Riverdale, asked what would happen if her friends from other states wanted to give her money, Bearden responded that she’d have to raise more money locally to match the amount.
The committee made a small change that Bearden approved.
So if the House were to pass the measure, it would have to return to the Senate for agreement. If the Senate agrees and the bill becomes law, it would take effect next January, after this election cycle.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat, an initiative of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.