Atlanta Unfiltered

March 2, 2015 — The Senate Ethics Committee today endorsed a plan to absolve many Georgia candidates from having to pay fines for missing financial reporting deadlines.

Feb. 19, 2015 — Up to four years of penalties for filing late campaign disclosures could be excused under bills filed this week in the Georgia Legislature.

A 2010 law required candidates for city and county offices to file campaign finance reports online with the state rather than locally. Many candidates pushed back, and the mandate was later rescinded.

Now, citing faults and malfunctions of the state ethics commission’s online filing system, two legislators are sponsoring bills to waive the late fees — $125 and up — imposed on those local candidates.

Dec. 11, 2014 — Georgia is regarded as one of the most corrupt states across all branches of government, according to a new survey by Harvard University.

We didn’t rank number one, though. (Thank God for Arizona and Kentucky.)

Respondents said illegal corruption is moderately to very common in Georgia’s executive branch and moderately common in its Legislature, a report from Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics found.

Dec. 4, 2014 — The state ethics commission is preparing to dismiss complaints next week against two high-profile political organizations on the left and the right: Better Georgia Inc. and Real PAC.

Oct. 18, 2014 — Sen. Fran Millar reimbursed the state last week for more than $2,100 taken from his legislative expense account that wound up in his campaign fund. Millar wrote the check a few days after Atlanta Unfiltered asked him about several unusual 2012 donations to his campaign — four checks, all disclosed as coming from the Georgia General Assembly.

May 22, 2014 — Retiring Sen. Cecil Staton will start earning a six-figure state salary next month at the University System of Georgia. Staton resigned his Senate seat today to become a vice chancellor overseeing programs for military veterans, budding entrepreneurs, international students and continuing education. “The idea is to try to bring all those folks under one person to direct them and give some coherence to it,” a University System spokesman said. The five-term senator, who did not seek re-election this year after a close shave in 2012, will start his new job June 1 at an annual salary of $165,000.

May 9, 2014 — Nearly $28,000 in political donations appear to be missing from Sen. David Lucas’ campaign account. While the longtime Macon lawmaker says it isn’t so, his latest disclosure shows a negative balance in his Senate campaign account.

Lucas said his campaign had money that wasn’t reflected in his most recent disclosure, but he wasn’t sure how much. “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been trying to keep with up with that. All I do is write checks.”

The problem stems from his campaign’s failure to fill out disclosures properly.

Jan. 2, 2014 — Georgia’s juvenile correctional officers, frustrated by low morale, stingy pay and thin staffing, quit their jobs three times as often as other state employees, state auditors say. Some 57 percent of DJJ’s entry-level officers resigned in FY 2013. A self-perpetuating downward spiral might best describe personnel practices outlined in the just-released audit. The constant turnover weakens staffing levels, so the remaining officers will have to work extra hours for which they won’t be paid immediately, if at all. Most don’t hang around for the two years necessary to qualify for promotion.

Nov. 25, 2013 — The Georgia Supreme Court agreed unanimously today that the removal of six DeKalb County school board members did not violate the state’s constitution. Gov. Nathan Deal suspended former board chair Gene Walker and five other members in February as the DeKalb school district faced an imminent loss of accreditation. In an opinion released today, the high court upheld Deal’s power to remove local school board members and the Legislature’s right to get involved to that extent in local school systems’ affairs.

Nov. 22, 2013 — I was lunching on the patio of a South Carolina plantation house when John Connally started talking about the afternoon, 50 years ago today, when someone shot him in Dallas. “Someone” is the proper word because Connally was never sure that Lee Harvey Oswald was the one who shot him. It’s no exaggeration to say that, as he explained his reasoning at lunch that day, you could have heard a pin drop.

Nov. 18, 2013 — Two Fulton County whistleblowers may proceed with legal claims that they lost their jobs in retaliation for reporting misuse of taxpayers’ funds, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled today. The decision strengthens the state’s whistleblower law by holding that the law protects all public employees, not just those who work in state-funded programs, and dismissing Fulton County’s defense of sovereign immunity.

Oct. 7, 2013 — The Georgia Supreme Court today unanimously ordered disbarment of Atlanta City Council member H. Lamar Willis for taking $30,000 from a client and failing to repay it. Willis’s actions, the high court said, demonstrate his “extreme disregard of his duty to safeguard the property of a client, which undermines the public trust.”