James_September-October_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 20
ADVERTISEMENTS THAT REFERENCE
PRIOR LEGISLATION ON PUBLIC POLICY
ISSUES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT ARISE
AGAIN BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE.
In this same case, the Commission alleged that unnamed
board members and/or officers of
a nonprofit group that had made
statements on public policy issues
had violated the Act by not registering as lobbyists. The case is unusual
both because the Commission made
allegations against unnamed individuals on the basis of communications undertaken by an entity, and
because it asserted that a group
engaged in lobbying by referencing prior legislation on issues that
may potentially come back before
the legislature, even though there
was no evidence that there is such
legislation currently pending or contemplated. It will be interesting to
see whether this preliminary ruling
stands as the case moves forward.
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HYBRID POLITICAL COMMITTEES.
ENFORCEMENT OF LOBBYING RULES.
There has been some press coverage of a ruling by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) at the Office
of State Administrative Hearings
(OSHA) concerning hybrid political
committees. Over the years, the
Commission has advised entities
that both give contributions to
candidates and also make independent expenditures to register both
as PACs (for the former activity) and
independent committees (for the latter). In the recent preliminary ruling,
an ALJ ruled that an entity cannot
be both a PAC and an independent
committee, and thus an entity that
had registered as a PAC did not
violate the Act by not also registering as an independent committee.
After the ALJ issued this ruling, the
Commission had a special meeting
and quickly reversed that order. It
remains to be seen how the case
will ultimately be resolved.
In a recent meeting, the
Commission advised that, going
forward, it intends to enforce
Georgia’s lobbying rules more
stringently. The Commission noted
that in the past there have not been
many cases involving lobbyists,
because the Commission did not
have a high level of confidence in
its filing system. The Commission
now has a new registration system,
and it has a high level of confidence
in it. The new system sends lobbyists email reminders and notices
when reports and/or late fees are
due. The Commission can now run
audits to identify all lobbyists who
have not filed their reports, and will
now actively pursue those who fail
to do so. As part of that, at a recent
meeting the Commission suspended the registration of a lobbyist
who had failed to pay late fees on
disclosure reports.
JAMES SEPTE M B E R/O C TO BE R 2 0 2 6
