Stacey Abrams, David Perdue call foul on GOP proposal to ban fundraising while Georgia legislature is in session

Abrams’s team notes that the move came shortly after her campaign announced outraising Kemp in December and January. According to her campaign, she raised a total of $9.2 million in December and January, and had $7.2 million on hand. Kemp reported raising $2.5 million during the same period, with a total of $7.4 million between July 2021 and Jan. 31. The governor’s campaign said in a Feb. 1 news release that it had $12.7 million in cash on hand. Perdue, according to media reports, raised $1 million during December and January.

In a letter to supporters over the weekend, Abrams noted her fundraising advantage during December and January and said Kemp “fears both our grassroots team and his GOP primary challenger, which is why he and his lieutenants in the legislature developed a cynical ploy to temporarily stop us both from raising funds.” Abrams urged her supporters to donate to her campaign “as soon as possible” in the event the measure passes.

The intent of the original law was to avoid the appearance that lawmakers were trading votes for campaign dollars during the sessions, which tend to attract lobbyists and others pushing legislation and funding for their favorite projects.

“We understand that Brian Kemp is afraid of Donald Trump and afraid of Stacey’s 100,000+ grassroots donors, but the idea that a governor seeking re-election would seek a legislative ban on fundraising by all his opponents is beyond the pale,” Seth Bringman, spokesman for the Abrams campaign, said in an email Tuesday.

The General Assembly session began in January and is scheduled to end April 4. Opponents of the measure are concerned, however, because Kemp has the power to extend the session or call special sessions, further hindering challengers’ ability to fundraise.

The legislation also came after a federal judge’s ruling — in a suit brought by Perdue — limited Kemp’s ability to use money from a special campaign committee approved by the legislature last year that allowed the governor and House and Senate caucuses to raise unlimited donations. Kemp can’t use the money during the Republican primary, but he can continue to raise money via the fund and use it for other races.

“Brian Kemp’s response to the Court taking away his corrupt slush fund is to push another Incumbent Protection Act — this one even more brazen and politically motivated,” Perdue’s campaign said in a statement Tuesday. “This attempt by incumbents to shut down their challengers’ ability to raise money is politics at its worst. If 20-year career politician Brian Kemp spent half as much time protecting Georgia’s elections as he does scheming to hold on to his office, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

In a statement, Kemp’s campaign spokesman, Cody Hall, said: “It’s no surprise that David Perdue and Stacey Abrams are joining forces to maintain the blatantly unfair status quo and continue raising money for their campaigns when the Governor is prohibited by law from doing so, solely because he is the incumbent during a legislative session. The surprising part is that they are being so open and honest about it.”

Asked if Kemp encouraged or assisted lawmakers in drafting the changes to the campaign finance law, Tate Mitchell, the campaign press secretary, responded in an email Tuesday: “The Governor’s floor leaders did not introduce the legislation. If it was passed in the legislature, the Governor would have to sign it to have the force of law, but we don’t comment on pending legislation until the language is final.”

Georgia’s gubernatorial race will be one of the most-watched in the nation. Kemp narrowly won the governor’s race in 2018 after hard-fought campaign with Abrams, who accused him of engaging in voter suppression after he declined to recuse himself from overseeing the election as secretary of state. The election was marred by numerous irregularities in faulty and too few voting machines in some precincts, tens of thousands of voters having their registrations suspended after early voting had already begun, and an unknown number of mail-in and provisional ballots tossed or not counted because of a lack of uniform standards.

Abrams acknowledged that Kemp was the “legal” governor of Georgia, but she declined to concede to him. She instead filed a lawsuit and became one of the country’s leading voting rights advocates. Her organization, Fair Fight, has raised more than $100 million since it launched in late 2018. The group gave millions in grants to grass-roots groups working with women, young people, rural communities, LGBTQ groups and people of color around the country during the 2020 elections.

Perdue, who lost his reelection bid in 2020, has emerged as a critic of both Kemp and Abrams, blaming them for President Donald Trump losing Georgia because of unproven claims of massive voter fraud. Trump egged Perdue into launching a primary challenge against Kemp.