Judge: Burt Jones’ political committee must stop funding his campaign

Under the 2021 law that created them, leadership committees can circumvent key contribution limits imposed on Georgia candidates. They can accept unlimited donations, while contributions to candidates for statewide office are limited to $8,400 for primary and general elections and $4,800 for runoffs.

Leadership committees also can raise money during the legislative session, while legislators and statewide officeholders cannot. And they can coordinate their spending with candidates.

Under the law only the governor, lieutenant governor, the Democratic and Republican nominees for those offices and legislative leaders of both parties can have leadership committees. That gives them a powerful — and critics say illegal — advantage over their political rivals.

Jones’ leadership committee has helped him pull ahead to a commanding fundraising lead in the race for governor.

His leadership committee had $15.9 million on hand as of Jan. 31, according to its most recent disclosure report. That’s in addition to his regular candidate committee, which has $3.3 million on hand.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has $5.4 million on hand and Attorney General Chris Carr has nearly $3.2 million. Neither is permitted to have a leadership committee. Jackson only recently announced his campaign and has reported no contributions.

Candidates who challenge that unequal treatment have had mixed results. Perdue and Abrams won orders preventing Kemp’s leadership committee from raising and spending money on his behalf until after he had formally won the Republican nomination.

More recently, judges rejected lawsuits by Carr and Raffensperger, who challenged campaign finance laws under different legal theories.

Jackson used the same approach taken by Perdue and Abrams.

“A federal court today made clear that Burt Jones doesn’t get his own rulebook,” said Jackson campaign spokesperson Dave Abrams.

A spokesperson for Jones blasted Jackson for weaponizing the courts.

“We’re not surprised Rick Jackson is taking a page from Stacey Abrams’ playbook, using lawfare to target President Trump’s endorsed candidate for governor,” Kayla Lott said. “Georgia Republicans have already rejected that strategy — and they’ll reject it again.”

In a social media post, Lott said the ad buys paid for from Jones’ leadership committee would be switched to his regular campaign committee.

“Today, the court agreed with what we have been saying all along — there’s a cloud of illegal, unethical and corrupt behavior that follows Burt Jones,” Carr spokesperson Julia Mazzone said. “Now, his campaign is in a tailspin.”