Blog for Democracy

Unacceptable

Once a year, the AJC prints a story on how various Georgia legislators owe back taxes or fees. Well, here we go again.

Forty-seven Georgia legislators, about 20 percent of the General Assembly, owed the state money as of Friday morning because they were late filing campaign finance reports — or didn’t file the reports at all, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of state records.

House Ethics Chairman Joe Wilkinson says “theres no excuse and we should not tolerate it.” But we’ll see whether any serious proposals are put forth in dealing with the issue.

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Jen B.

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11 responses to “Unacceptable”

  1. Dave Bearse Avatar
    Dave Bearse

    ~70% of the delinquents are Democrats (27 of 37 in the House, 7 of 10 in the Senate), yet the House and the Senate are both nearly two-thirds Republican.

    More than one-third of the Democratic representation have outstanding fines, and Dems are five times more likely than a Republican to owe fines.

    Hardly facts that encourage one to generically promote Democrats to colleagues, neighbors and friends.

  2. JMPrince Avatar
    JMPrince

    Year in, year out the same cast of miscreants who neglect to do their duty to the state by way of paying taxes. In addition to what harm they do while ‘at work’ for the citizens of Ga. Still about the easiest damn story the AJC does every year. Intern bait.

    Never paying taxes means never having to say you’re sorry, or ‘I’ll help my neighbors’, or perhaps even answering the door either. But eventually everyone has to pay up. One way or another:
    http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/06/architectural-plans.html

    JMP

  3. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    Ha! True enough.

  4. Gunner Avatar
    Gunner

    The ethics folks know where everyone of them will be for at least part of the year while they are in session. They could have hand delivered the notices to every Rep while they were all in Atlanta.

  5. sunkawakan Avatar
    sunkawakan

    Why not make it a criminal offense, punishable by implantation of a microchip?

  6. innerredneckexposed Avatar
    innerredneckexposed

    Or garnish any legislative pay.

  7. innerredneckexposed Avatar
    innerredneckexposed

    Ron Sailor was the other.

    Have the Ethics commission be able to prevent anyone from qualifying for running if he or she owes a significant fine to the Ethics Commission. A $75 one…meh, but this four figure stuff is ridiculous. No one should give money to Roberta…IMO.

  8. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    Even that’s a bullshit excuse though. If the statute says you must send it via certified mail and you can’t afford to do that, then email everyone a PDF version with read receipt to their work address and mail a regular copy. I think that would constitute fair compliance with the statute. Instead, they throw up their hands up and say, “Oh well, we couldn’t afford to do it, so we did nothing.”

  9. Gunner Avatar
    Gunner

    The best part about that article is that the geniuses under the gold dome slashed the Ethics commissions budget so much that they couldn’t afford to mail the Reps to let them know they owed money.

  10. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    Heh. I saw there’s another jailed guy on there too. I would probably be okay with zeroing out guys who went to jail.

  11. David Avatar
    David

    Saw Charles Walker was on the list. Since he is currently in jail, so does he count?
    Also, found it ironic that his “good buddy” Sonny Perdue owes the exact same $300.

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