By A nonprofit organization founded by Stacey Abram has admitted to violating state law during her 2018 gubernatorial campaign. The New Georgia Project, which was led at the time by current Georgia senator, Raphael Warnock, acknowledged the infractions during a state ethics commission meeting held on Wednesday.
The organization confessed to funding campaign materials and deploying canvassers, violating Georgia laws requiring organizations engaging in political campaigning to register as political committees—something the New Georgia Project failed to do, writes The New York Times.
At a meeting of the state’s ethics commission, the nonprofit New Georgia Project conceded that it had paid for fliers and door-to-door canvassers telling voters to support Ms. Abrams and other Democrats.
The nonprofit conceded that, because of its campaign work for Ms. Abrams, it should have registered with the state as a political committee, but it did not. A related nonprofit, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, admitted the same.
As a result, the two nonprofits agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty. David Emadi, the executive director of the commission, said it was the largest fine in its 38-year history.
The admissions will settle a six-year battle between the nonprofits and the state ethics commission, which first accused Ms. Abrams’s group of wrongdoing in 2019.
“They’re now admitting everything we said was true,” Mr. Emadi said in an interview this week. He said the nonprofits had asked to pay the fine in two $150,000 installments, one now and one in a year.
Warnock is considered a main contender for president in 2028.
Founded by Abrams in 2013, the New Georgia Project gained attention for its voter registration drives, propelling her to the national spotlight. However, investigations revealed that in 2018, the group used funds to produce fliers endorsing Abrams and coordinated canvassers to promote her candidacy. Such activities breached the rules governing tax-exempt organizations. Additionally, financial records revealed insufficient separation between the New Georgia Project and its affiliate group.
The nonprofits admitted to failing to disclose $3.2 million in spending on campaign-related activities. Emadi characterized this as “the largest amount of money we’ve ever discovered being illegally used to influence elections.”
ABC News has reported that the 2018 accusations were not the only time that the Abrams-Warnock group violated the law.
“The groups repeated the same illegal activity in 2019 when they campaigned to extend public transportation in suburban Gwinnett County, failing to disclose $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 in spending for voter referendum to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. The referendum lost.
The commission fined another group, Gente4Abrams, $50,000 in 2020 for failing to register and file reports on $240,000 it spent to help Abrams in the 2018 Democratic primary, the commission found. The group registered after the commission ruling, reporting it spent an additional $685,000 for Abrams in the 2018 general election.”
A spokesperson for Warnock’s Senate office told the outlet that Warnock was working “as a longtime champion for voting rights” and didn’t know anything about violations. “Compliance decisions were not a part of that work.”
Although Abrams and Warnock were not personally penalized, the settlement has sparked questions about potential violations of federal tax laws that prohibit nonprofits from endorsing political candidates. The IRS declined to comment on whether it would pursue further investigation into the matter.
This isn’t the first time that Abrams has found herself wrapped up in charges of ethics violations. In 2022, her voting rights organization, Fair Fight Action, has faced scrutiny for its financial practices, particularly for directing $9.4 million to a boutique law firm owned by Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’ close friend and campaign chair.
The payments, linked to a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s election laws, have been criticized for their unusually high fees and the lack of success in court, as the group lost its case on all three remaining claims. The lawsuit, launched shortly after Abrams’ narrow loss in the 2018 gubernatorial race, aimed to address alleged voter suppression but ended with a federal judge ruling that Georgia’s election practices did not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.
Abrams’ organization, which raised over $50 million to support voting rights, has been central to her national profile as a champion against voter suppression. However, the significant expenditures on a single legal effort and the involvement of close associates have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Critics have also highlighted Abrams’ financial transformation since 2018, when she was in debt, to now being worth over $3 million. As she campaigns again for governor, polling shows her trailing Republican incumbent Brian Kemp, with challenges in rallying key Democratic constituencies and appealing to moderate Republicans. Her struggles to close the polling gap have led to questions about her ability to replicate past successes and the future of her advocacy efforts.
Following her defeat in 2018, Abrams became one of the biggest election deniers in the country and has been caught up in scandals, particularly related to finances, several times.
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