Chris Carr questions legality of rival Burt Jones' $10M campaign loan
Attorney General Chris Carr's campaign lawyer asked the Georgia Ethics Commission for a legal opinion saying Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was prohibited from making the loan to his leadership committee, a special fundraising vehicle that allows the governor, lieutenant governor and legislative leaders to raise unlimited funds.
A spokesperson for Jones called the complaint a 'weak attempt to get attention' in a statement.
Carr and some other candidates for state office cannot have the so-called leadership committees for campaign fundraising under a 2021 state law that created the committees unless they win their party's nomination for governor or lieutenant governor. Instead, they are limited to candidate committees, which can raise a maximum of $8,400 from each donor. Opponents say that's an unfair advantage for incumbents.
Jones and Carr are competing for the Republican nomination to succeed Gov. Brian Kemp, who legally can't run again after two terms. The GOP primary is next May, followed by the general election in November 2026.
Jones filed documents showing he made loans of $7.5 million and $2.5 million to the WBJ Leadership Committee when he announced his long-anticipated run for governor on July 8.
The cash infusion was part of Jones' strategy to set himself up as the front-runner in the race.
Carr announced his run for governor last year, saying he needed a long runway to raise money because he isn't personally wealthy. Carr's campaign has been voicing concerns for months that Jones will use his leadership committee and his family wealth from a string of gas stations to win the primary.
Bryan Tyson, a lawyer for Carr's campaign, on Thursday requested an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission on whether the loans are legal. Tyson argued that under Georgia law, loans can be made only to a candidate committee, not to a freestanding political action committee, or even a leadership committee, which is allowed to coordinate with a candidate committee.
Carr's campaign cited a 2022 federal judge's ruling that a leadership committee for Gov. Brian Kemp could not spend money to get Kemp reelected during the Republican primary that year. U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen found that the 'unequal campaign finance scheme' violated challenger David Perdue's First Amendment right to free speech.
RELATED NEWS:
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr plans to run for governor
Too early? Political experts weigh in on Chris Carr's announcement that he's running for governor
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones forms committee to explore getting rid of state income tax
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones announces run for governor
Jones spokesperson Kendyl Parker said in a statement she was 'not surprised by this weak attempt to get attention — it's exactly what you'd expect from a campaign that's losing steam with many months to go until Election Day.'
Tyson suggested that if Jones could make a loan to the leadership committee and then raise unlimited sums to repay himself, he could give the repaid money to his candidate committee to spend in the primary. That would evade Cohen's ban on the use of leadership committee money in the primary. Tyson warned that such laundering would 'wash away contribution limits entirely.'
The Ethics Commission must issue an advisory opinion within 60 days under state law.
In a related complaint to the commission on Thursday, Tyson alleged that Jones broke state law because his previous financial disclosures didn't show that he had $10 million in cash or securities to be able to afford such large loans.
Tyson pointed to a 2022 financial disclosure that showed Jones had a net worth of $12.4 million, but only $700,000 in cash and securities. The rest was tied up in the value of real estate and Jones' insurance agency, the disclosure stated. Tyson noted that Jones' 2024 disclosure showed he hadn't sold real estate or his business, arguing 'it appears he could not have sufficient liquid assets to loan his leadership committee $10 million.'
Ethics complaints can take years to resolve, but Tyson said it was 'imperative' that the commission move quickly to determine the source of the loan, whether it was properly reported and whether Jones planned to spend from his leadership committee in the primary.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
No one knows whether Trump's $50B for rural health will be enough
A ranch owner brings in a load of hay from her ranch in Texas in 2024. Experts and lawmakers worry a new $50 billion program designed to help struggling rural health care providers may not be enough to offset federal funding losses. (Photo by) Congress set aside $50 billion for rural hospitals and medical providers to allay fears over the billions more in historic cuts to federal health care spending that President Donald Trump signed into law on Independence Day. But is that bandage big enough to save struggling rural hospitals? 'I have more questions than I have answers,' said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, a nonprofit policy group. 'No one has those answers yet.' Morgan noted that the new money for rural health, to be spent over five years, is far less than the $155 billion in rural Medicaid spending cuts over 10 years, as estimated by KFF, a nonprofit health policy and research group. Experts, hospital leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle fear that Trump's signature legislation will particularly gut rural hospitals and clinics, which see an outsize share of patients who are insured through Medicaid, the federal-state public health insurance for people with low incomes. The new law slashes more than $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next 10 years to help pay for tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. States scramble to shield hospitals from GOP Medicaid cuts The $50 billion addition was an effort by Republican leaders in Congress to win the votes of colleagues within their party who initially balked at supporting such steep cuts to Medicaid and other health services. In the U.S. Senate, the rural program helped secure the vote of Alaska moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who expressed concern about the law's impact on health care in her state. About 1 in 3 Alaskans are insured through Medicaid. Jared Kosin, the president and CEO of the Alaska Hospital & Healthcare Association, said he's deeply frustrated with the new law's gutting of Medicaid funding, which he thinks will wreak lasting damage on Alaskans. And Republicans sidestepped potential solutions by just throwing money into a program, he said. 'It's frustrating in the public realm when decisions like this are made fast and, frankly, carelessly,' he said. 'The consequences are going to fall on us, not them.' More than half of the law's cuts to funding in rural areas are concentrated in 12 states with large rural populations that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to cover more people, according to KFF: Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Some GOP lawmakers in Congress have heralded the $50 billion rural program as a health care victory. But it's still unclear which hospitals, clinics and other providers would receive money and how much. The Rural Health Transformation Program will dole out $10 billion annually from fiscal years 2026 through 2030. States must apply for their funding by the end of this year, submitting a detailed plan on how it would be used. The law outlines some ways that states can use the money, according to an analysis of the legislation from the Bipartisan Policy Center: Making payments to rural hospitals to help them maintain essential services such as emergency room care or labor and delivery. Recruiting and training rural doctors, nurses and other health workers. Bolstering emergency medical services such as ambulances and EMTs. Using new technologies, including telehealth. Providing opioid use disorder treatment and mental health services. Improving preventive care and chronic disease management. Half of the $10 billion each year will be distributed evenly across states that have applied for it. The other half can be distributed by the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — currently Dr. Mehmet Oz — at his discretion, based on a state's rural population and rural health facilities. Although the program doesn't replace the amount states are likely to lose, Morgan said it's still an opportunity to rethink how rural health care is funded. He'd like to see states given flexibility in how they're able to use the funds, and he hopes they focus on keeping rural communities healthy through preventive care while still helping hospitals keep their doors open. 'If done correctly, it could really change the future course for rural America,' Morgan said. 'That is such a tough ask, though.' Kentucky could take the biggest hit from the new law's reduction in rural Medicaid funding, losing an estimated $12 billion over 10 years, according to a KFF analysis. Tracking Medicaid patients' work status may prove difficult for states The state's Medicaid department is still waiting for additional federal guidance to understand how the state's program will be affected, Kendra Steele, spokesperson with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told Stateline in a statement. 'Over 1.4 million Kentuckians rely on Medicaid — including half of all children in our state, seniors and more vulnerable populations — and the passage of legislation on the federal level will have serious impacts for those individuals, rural health care and hospitals and local economies,' she wrote. Even with the new program, states across the country will have to reevaluate their budgets in light of the cuts, said Hemi Tewarson, executive director at the National Academy for State Health Policy, a nonpartisan group that supports states in developing health care policies. 'Every region is slightly different and there's not a one-size-fits-all approach,' she said. 'Hospital ownership varies [as well as] the types of services that are critical for the community where they're located. They have to think about new ways to provide those services in a context with fewer resources.' About 44% of rural hospitals are operating in the red, according to a KFF analysis of Rand Hospital Data, a higher share than the 35% of hospitals in urban areas. Prior to the bill's passage, Oz attempted to reassure U.S. House Republicans that their districts could get money from the program even if they weren't specifically rural, Politico reported earlier this month. We're all rural at heart when it comes to money. – Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan said money would begin flowing to his district as early as the beginning of next year, telling the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader earlier this month that he met with Trump, Oz and others to secure pledges that hospitals in his district could access the fund. He represents the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, which includes suburban and rural areas, as well as the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Though the legislation includes guidelines on which facilities or areas qualify as 'rural,' Morgan, of the National Rural Health Association, expects a mad dash from lawmakers and providers to claim rural status in order to get a piece of the funding. 'That's going to be a huge issue — defining who's rural,' Morgan said. 'We're all rural at heart when it comes to money.' Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Hill Republicans brace for another grueling fight over Trump's spending cuts
Congressional Republicans have passed Donald Trump's $9 billion rescissions package, capping a painful ordeal that put even members who supported it in a tough spot. Now, many Republicans are wincing at the prospect of having to do it all over again. White House budget director Russ Vought said Thursday that a second request to rescind congressionally approved spending is likely coming soon. That will mean another bitter go-round on an issue that inflamed GOP institutionalists who worry about the administration's steady encroachment on Congress' power of the purse — even as many fiscal hawks embraced the move to cut spending in any way possible. Some Republicans think next time will be different. They believe the White House understands, after multiple warnings from lawmakers, that another norm-shattering rescissions package couldn't land in GOP laps without a lot more transparency around what, exactly, the administration wanted Congress to cut. 'I think we'll probably take a different approach,' Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said in an interview Thursday, adding, 'I think the lesson on this one is, we need to be including the chair and making sure we're working together.' Mullin was referring to Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Maine Republican was so piqued that she voted against the package alongside just one other GOP senator, fellow appropriator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Appropriations Committee chair cited qualms with both the nature of the original, $9.4 billion spending cut request and the information deficit around the scale and scope of that request. 'There can't be too much communication; there can't be too much information with senators. … We've got to obviously make sure that everybody feels like they're getting all the information they need,' Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who spearheaded the rescissions process in the Senate, said in an interview Thursday about lessons learned. This was something former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell was clamoring for. He ultimately supported the rescissions bill on final passage, but made his irritation with the administration clear after opposing a procedural vote to advance it. 'OMB is the problem. They won't tell us how they're going to apply the cut,' the Kentucky Republican said of the Office of Management and Budget this week. 'I want to make it clear I don't have any problem with reducing spending. … They would like a blank check is what they would like, and I don't think that's appropriate.' But it's not clear whether the White House is, in fact, prepared to change its approach. At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters Thursday morning, Vought appeared unrepentant about the posture the OMB had taken in spearheading the $9 billion spending cut request, which would slash public broadcasting and global health initiatives. 'The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,' Vought said. Without a course correction from the administration, there's no guarantee Republicans would welcome another interruption of their legislative agenda to conduct another exercise that exposes them to Democratic attacks or forces them to potentially cross the president. That Congress is now entering the pivotal weeks before the Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a government shutdown could further diminish the enthusiasm for another rescissions package. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) was noncommittal this week when asked about Congress signing off on additional funding cuts, pointing instead to the appropriations process as his top priority. 'We'll see what the future holds, but the goal right now is to get into the appropriations process. Let's start marking up bills, trying to get them on the floor,' Thune said. 'So my hope would be that that's the way we deal with a lot of these issues.' Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also suggested his priorities were shifting as the funding cliff deadline approaches. Asked what appetite his colleagues had for more rescissions packages, Hoeven said it 'depends who you ask.' While they could try to do rescissions and appropriations, 'I want to get the approps process going,' Hoeven said. Even Schmitt, who confirmed that 'additional rescissions are being contemplated,' conceded the Senate is now facing a major scheduling crunch. Democrats are also warning that pursuing more GOP-only rescissions packages could blow up bipartisan government funding talks, with trust between the two parties already eroding in light of Vought's latest comments. Top Senate Appropriations Democrat Patty Murray (Wash.), during an Appropriations Committee meeting after Vought's comments, called the GOP's multi-part rescissions push a 'dangerous new precedent.' 'Bipartisanship does not end with any one line being crossed,' she said. 'It erodes over time, bit by bit. And frankly I am alarmed by how quickly that erosion is happening.' At the same time, GOP leaders may have no choice but to plow ahead, especially in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson, his top lieutenants and Trump himself have repeatedly promised votes on an elaborate patchwork of more rescissions packages, party-line reconciliation bills and spending cuts in government funding measures. They did so to appease fiscal hawks who balked at the trillions in new spending in the just-enacted Trump megabill. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a close ally of Trump, said in an interview earlier this month that she's discussed with the president and Republican leadership a 'multi-step plan' to cut spending that includes 'massive rescissions' and more reconciliation bills. Vought indicated the White House is well along in planning the next rescissions package. While Mullin said that Republicans are 'not putting the cart too far before the horse' in planning what could be included, some members have had 'high-level brainstorming' sessions with the White House budget chief on the subject. Vought has also already started calling GOP senators and is getting an eager reception from some of his Hill allies. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview Thursday that he pushed Vought during a closed-door lunch Tuesday to send additional spending cut packages to Capitol Hill. The budget director, he added, called him on Wednesday morning and said, according to Kennedy, 'another is coming your way.' 'I'm ready to gobble them up,' Kennedy added, before imitating a turkey: 'Gobble, gobble.' Cassandra Dumay, Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully McManus contributed to this report.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Hedge funds favour short-dated, convertible bonds if Fed's Powell leaves early
By Nell Mackenzie and Summer Zhen LONDON (Reuters) -Hedge funds say they are prepared if U.S. President Donald Trump fires Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell before his term expires next year. The dollar briefly tumbled on Wednesday and long-dated Treasury yields rose on reports that Trump is likely to fire Powell soon. Trump denied the reports. Trump has repeatedly criticised the Fed chief for not cutting rates quickly enough. Four hedge funds shared four ideas on how to trade an early Powell departure. Their views do not represent recommendations or trading positions, which they cannot reveal for regulatory reasons. 1/ RBC BLUEBAY ASSET MANAGEMENT * Macro economic fund * Size: part of the $491 billion RBC Global Asset Management * Founded in 2001 * Key trade: Buy 2-year U.S. Treasuries, sell 30-year Treasuries Trump has said that he would "love" it if Powell were to resign, and has called for interest rates to be cut to 1%. The current range for the key Fed funds rate is 4.25%-4.5%. A new Fed chair would be pushed to cut rates, lowering front end yields, said Mark Dowding, CIO for BlueBay fixed income. Bond yields move inversely to price. Two-year Treasury yields dropped following Wednesday's news reports, while 30-year yields briefly jumped. "Long-dated yields may well move in the opposite direction as Fed independence is undermined and medium-term inflation risks increase," Dowding said. 2/ FOURIER ASSET MANAGEMENT * Convertible bond specialist * Size: $10 million * Founded in 2024 * Key trade: Buy Coinbase convertible bonds Orlando Gemes, CIO and co-founder of Fourier Asset Management, favours convertible bonds issued by crypto exchange Coinbase. These bonds, which provide a steady income and can turn into shares at pre-agreed prices, are the fund's main focus. "Our preference is the 2026 bond given the conversion price of $370.45, while the 2030 bond has a conversion price of $333.55," said Gemes. Gemes does not expect a huge market reaction initially if Powell is fired but believes the result will be inflationary. If rates are cut, the yields on these convertible bonds will fall. "But ultimately a Powell firing... would continue the inflationary nature of the Trump administration," said Gemes. The U.S. Consumer Price Index rose 2.7% in June on an annual basis, versus 2.4% in May. 3/ COLOMA CAPITAL FUTURES * Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) * Size: Cannot disclose for regulatory reasons * Founded in 2009 * Key trade: sell the dollar David Burkart, founder and CIO of Caloma Capital, says he would sell the dollar against a basket of currencies. "A Powell replacement is extremely likely to be dovish and thus the interest rate differential between the U.S. and other countries will narrow, reducing the relative attractiveness of the dollar," said Burkart. Longer term, the U.S. debt and tax burden is increasing and risks slower U.S. growth which should also weigh on the dollar, he said. Burkart believes the dollar index could potentially fall to 90 and that 80 is "not out of the question." The dollar index, currently trading at around 98.56, has tumbled almost 10% so far this year. 4/UNION BANCAIRE PRIVEE (UBP) * Japan equity long/short hedge fund strategy, market-neutral, governance focused * Size: Part of $200 billion UBP * Founded in 2020 * Key trade: short Japanese exporters, especially those without overseas production bases Zuhair Khan, senior portfolio manager at UBP Investments, who manages a long-short Japan equities fund, said he expects the yen to strengthen and most Japanese stocks to fall if Powell leaves early. The blue-chip Nikkei 225 is down 0.2% so far this year, underperforming other major markets in Asia. Domestic Japanese stocks are likely to fare better than exporters, though all of them are likely to fall, says Khan. Within exporters, Khan favoured picking names with more overseas production aimed at those markets rather than those producing in Japan for export.
