Memo to Georgia House Speaker David Ralston regarding his 2013-2014 Campaign Expenses.
I have ceased any effort to audit your campaign expense reports since I have learned that you have made it impossible to audit them in any meaningful way.
Speaker Ralston filed official campaign contribution and expense reports with the Georgia Ethics Commission for the 2013-2014 election cycle that listed $1.3 million in contributions and $1.1 million in expenses.
Speaker Ralston had only one personal campaign to finance. He had an opponent in the Republican primary. He defeated that opponent by 2 to 1 with 9000 votes cast on June 20, 2014.
In Georgia, elected public officials like Mr. Ralston can spend campaign contribution money on any political job related expense. They can directly make contributions to other candidates using their own contributions. They can spend the money of their staffs, food, housing, trips, legal counsel, newspaper subscriptions, gifts, etc, etc., anything that is not illegal for some other reason.
The campaign contribution and expense system is entirely "self reporting" and no receipts are required.
In 2013, Speaker Ralston's expense reports were challenged in an Ethics Complaint as not providing enough detail as to their purpose to be able to tell whether they were valid or not. The Complaint "alleges that Respondent (Ralston) violated the (Campaign Ethics) Act by allegedly giving "insufficient detail to show that the expenditure was for a lawfully authorized campaign purpose."
Speaker Ralston responded to the Complaint via his lawyer stating that the requirement to provide "sufficient detail" was not a part of the law and therefore was not enforceable.
(Go back and read the prior sentence again.)
Yes, Speaker Ralston contended that the Georgia Law requires that only the "general purpose" of the expense be documented and he was capable of determining what "general purpose" meant and he could not be challenged on this.
Previously to this, Ralston had played a role is stripping the Campaign Ethics Commission of its authority to write rules to interpret and implement the law.
(Go back and read the prior sentence again.)
Now how do you like that?
So in effect Speaker Ralston, and all other elected public officials can spend their campaign contribution money for whatever they want. They can define their own "general purpose" on the expense form and nobody can challenge it.
The People have no business knowing what their elected officials spent the money on. It is none of their business. It wasn't the People's money anyway. It was money that came from the elected officials friends and supports. It did not come from the Public at Large.
Here is the letter that Speaker Ralson's attorney sent to the Ethics Commission informing them that the Speaker could spend his campaign contribution money however he wants to and there is NOTHING they can do about it.
http://atlantaunfiltered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Chalmers-response-re-Ralston-2010-0031.pdf
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