The group founded by Stacey Abrams received a historic fine for violating campaign finance rules
A couple of voting advocacy groups he founded failed Georgia Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams has been hit with a historic fine by the Georgia Ethics Commission for violating campaign finance laws to support Abrams’ 2018 election.
“Today, the State Ethics Commission entered into a consent agreement with Project New Georgia and the New Georgia Project Action Fund in the total amount of $300,000,” the Georgia State Ethics Commission announced in a statement Wednesday. “This certainly represents the largest monetary penalty imposed in the history of the Georgia Ethics Commission, but it also appears to be the largest ethics penalty ever imposed by any state ethics commission in the country in connection with an election and campaign finance case.”
Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2013 as part of an effort to register more minority voters and young voters. The organization was established as a charity that can accept tax-deductible donations, while the New Georgia Project Action Fund operated as the fundraising arm of the organization.
The groups admitted to failing to disclose about $4.2 million in contributions and $3.2 million in expenses that were used during Abrams’ 2018 reelection efforts, according to the commission’s warrant. The groups were hit with a total of 16 violations, including failing to register as a political committee and failing to disclose millions of dollars in political contributions.
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Stacey Abrams (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images/File)
The groups were accused of conducting similar activities in 2019, when they allegedly failed to disclose $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 while promoting a ballot initiative.
“This represents the largest and most significant example of an organization illegally influencing our state elections in Georgia that we have ever uncovered, and I believe this sends a clear message to both the public and potential bad actors moving forward that we will hold you accountable,” the ethics commission continued in its press release from Wednesday.
Abrams stepped down from the group in 2017, and Sen. Raphael Warnock took the reins as executive director of Project New Georgia from 2017 to 2019, the Associated Press reported. In 2020, Warnock was elected as a US senator from Georgia.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who also serves as lead pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, speaks from the pulpit. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images/File)
A spokesman for Warnock’s Senate office told the AP that he worked “as a long-time supporter of voting rights” and was unaware of campaign violations. The spokesman added that “compliance decisions were not part of that job.” Fox Digital also reached out to Warnock’s office for further comment, but did not immediately hear back.
Abrams ran for governor of Georgia in 2018 and 2022, but lost both races to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Abrams gained national attention after the 2018 race when she refused to concede to the Republican despite losing by 60,000 votes.
In the middle of the 2018 race, she promoted the New Georgia project on her X account, which at the time was called Twitter.
“When Abrams sees a problem, she doesn’t wait for someone else to step in – she does it herself. So when she saw that 800,000 people of color in Georgia were not registered to vote, Abrams immediately set out to solve the problem and founded The New GA Project,” she wrote on Twitter.
The New Georgia Project said in comments provided to Fox News Digital that they are “glad to finally put this behind them” so the group can “fully devote their time and attention to their efforts civically engage and register black, brown and young voters in Georgia.”
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“Although we are disappointed by the fact that the federal court is deciding on the constitutionality of transparency and Law on the financing of the election campaign overturned on purely procedural grounds, we accept this outcome and are eager to turn the page on activities that occurred more than five years ago,” the group continued.
