Lt. Gov. Burt Jones hasn’t yet announced his long-anticipated campaign for governor of Georgia, but he’s already taking advantage of a state law allowing him to raise unlimited sums of money—something none of his would-be rivals can do. And despite a previous ruling clamping down on this one-sided state of affairs, Jones insists he can spend this windfall in his quest to win next year’s Republican primary—a question that may wind up back in the courts.
Jones, who is one of Donald Trump’s top allies in the state, enjoys this advantageous position thanks to a 2021 law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp authorizing powerful new entities called “leadership committees.”
Candidates for statewide office are limited to accepting $8,400 from individual donors for the primary and the same amount for the general election. They’re also barred from fundraising when the legislature is in session. By contrast, there are no such restrictions for leadership committees. These groups, unlike federal super PACs, are also allowed to coordinate directly with the campaigns they’re supporting.
The law allows the sitting governor, lieutenant governor, and leaders of both parties to create these special committees. Everyone else is out of luck, though nominees for governor and lieutenant governor who don’t currently hold those offices can establish their own leadership committees after they win their party’s nomination.
Kemp took advantage of the law he signed during his fight against former Sen. David Perdue in the 2022 GOP primary. Both Perdue and Democrat Stacey Abrams, who couldn’t yet form leadership committees, argued that Kemp had an unfair advantage. Federal Judge Mark Cohen barred the governor’s committee from spending money until he won the primary, but he did not invalidate the law.
Kemp went on to beat both Perdue and Abrams, and he’s continued to utilize his leadership committee to advocate for allied candidates—including Trump. State Democrats sued to strike down the law last year, but they dropped their suit after Cohen ruled they lacked standing to bring a challenge.
Jones’s committee, called the WBJ Leadership Committee, finished January with $2.6 million in the bank. (The lieutenant governor’s full name is William Burton Jones.) Cohen’s ruling against Kemp in 2022 would seemingly bar his allies from spending that money on his behalf in the upcoming primary to succeed Kemp, but unsurprisingly, he and his rivals sharply disagree on whether it still applies.
Attorney General Chris Carr, who launched his own campaign for the GOP nod in November, believes the answer is no. A strategist for Carr—who does not have access to a leadership committee—told the Associated Press that Cohen’s earlier decision means that cash raised by WBJ “cannot be spent on anything that furthers his Republican primary campaign for governor.”
Carr, it so happens, defended the law in his capacity as attorney general against the challenge brought by Perdue and Abrams, calling their attempt to restrict leadership committees a “nakedly political effort.”…