Ethics Fines Span Parties

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023

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Good morning! This week, we look at sanctions handed down by the state ethics commission against three Coastal Georgia political figures, the announcement of a rare primary challenge to a longtime Savannah-area state senator, and actions taken at a recent meeting of the 1^st District GOP. Questions, comments, story ideas? Email me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com.

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Ethics violations

Getting a ride from the McIntosh County sheriff to a county barn for a stump speech. Failing to file 11 election-related documents. Not disclosing nearly $6,000 in campaign expenditures.

These violations of Georgia’s campaign finance laws by three Coastal Georgia political figures were disclosed at a State Ethics Commission meeting on Friday in downtown Savannah, The Current’s Jake Shore reports.

Members of the state panel focused on violations by Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones, a Democrat; and two elected Republican officials in McIntosh County, Sheriff Stephen Jessup and County Commissioner Davis Poole.

The committee found that Jessup and Poole had violated laws regarding the use of county resources to boost a political campaign.

In 2022, Jessup gave Poole, at the time a candidate for county commission, a ride in a sheriff’s office car to a county-owned maintenance facility/barn, where Poole was scheduled to give a stump speech to eight to 10 people. 

Poole, meanwhile, failed to disclose $5,827.91 in campaign expenditures, due to a “filing error,” the commission said. He also failed to file a personal financial disclosure.

Jessup agreed to a $500 civil fine. Poole was fined $1,625 in civil penalties and late fees.

Cook Jones, who recently told The Current she’s running next year for another four-year term as Chatham’s district attorney, didn’t file eight campaign finance disclosures or three personal financial disclosures, as required by law in her 2020 campaign. 

Ahead of the meeting in Savannah she agreed to file the missing documents belatedly and pay a fine of $3,000 in civil penalties and late fees.

Although Cook Jones had not filed the missing documents by Friday’s meeting, all but one of the commission members expressed satisfaction that she would fully comply. They identified no other campaign violations after viewing her bank statements, one commissioner said.

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Rare primary challenge

For the first time since he ran for the state House of Representatives in 2010, state Sen. Ben Watson of Savannah will face primary opposition next year.

Beth Majeroni, a founding member of the local organization Ladies on the Right, announced last week she will challenge Watson for the District 1 seat in the state Senate in the Republican primary on May 21.

It’s time for “true conservative leadership” in the capitol, said Majeroni, also a co-founder of the local chapter of Freedom in Education, which describes its objective as “restoring parental rights, high-quality education, and civic virtue to our public schools.”

“My focus will be on preserving our children’s rights to a quality education so they can become tomorrow’s leaders, protecting our parents’ rights, and ensuring the transparency and integrity of our electoral processes,” Majeroni said in the news release announcing her candidacy.

Watson, an internal medicine and primary care specialist at SouthCoast Health in Savannah, didn’t respond to a request on Monday for clarification of his reelection plans.

As chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Watson in recent years been at the center of debates over whether and how to require insurance companies to cover mental health care the same way they cover treatment for physical ailments and to expand government health coverage for the poor.

The panel and its chairman have also been at the center of debate over whether to amend or repeal laws over how the state evaluates the need for news hospitals and clinics — so-called certificate of need program. Without a certificate of need, a hospital can’t open or expand.

In his six campaigns for state office — two as District 126 representative and four as District 1 senator — Watson has faced primary opposition once and general election opposition three times.

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1st District GOP: No to UNESCO, mental health legislation

The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge should not be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and legislation set to be considered by the Senate in January that would expand mental health services in the state should be rejected, according to the resolutions approved by the 1^st District GOP at its meeting earlier this month in Glynn County.

The committee, chaired by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor of Brantley, said in a news release that the rejection of the UNESCO designation “reflects concerns about potential commercialization and changes” that it would bring to the district.

Opposition to the mental health-related legislation, it said, stemmed from “concerns about the bill’s impact on gun rights, medical freedom and personal freedom.” Those in favor of the legislation, which has passed the House in March, say it’s the “next step in improving behavioral health protocols, services, and workforce for children and adults in the state.”

At the meeting, Danny Bartlett of Ware County was appointed chair of the resolutions committee; John Royall of Camden County, chair of the rules committee; Brittany Brown of Chatham County, chair of the credentialing committee; and Rachel Baldwin of Camden County, chair of the code of conduct committee.

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ICYMI

• “Another Hyundai supplier lands in coastal Georgia near $7.6B Metaplant” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 8, 2023) “[Kyungshin America Corp’s] “facility will employ 70 workers and represent a $22 million investment, according to the Broe Group. Located near Rincon in Effingham County, the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub is a 2,600-acre logistics park off McCall Road.” 
• “Savannah passes $560 million budget for 2024 behind increases in tax revenue” (Savannah Morning News, Dec. 8, 2023) “The new budget will also feature the first year of collections from an 8% hotel-motel tax increase. The projected collections for 2024 come in at $45 million, which is up from $30 million in 2023’s adopted budget. Next year’s budget has about $6 million for tourism product development, which includes projects such as the Savannah Waterfront Redevelopment, the Historic Water Works Building and Tide-to-Town.”
• “Lawmakers close redistricting session; judge to decide if GOP-crafted maps comply with order” (Georgia Recorder, Dec. 8, 2023) “Depending on who is asked, a newly redrawn congressional map is either an open act of defiance or exactly what federal Judge Steve Jones instructed lawmakers to do when he struck down Georgia’s political maps for diluting the voting strength of Black voters.”
• “Trump Takes 2024 Lead as Biden Approval Hits New Low, WSJ Poll Finds” (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2023) “President Biden’s political standing is at its weakest point of his presidency, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, with voters giving him his lowest job-performance marks and favoring Donald Trump for the first time in a head-to-head test of the likely 2024 presidential matchup.”

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