Tag: fine

A nonprofit voter engagement group founded by high-profile Georgia perennial candidate Stacey Abrams reportedly suffered dozens of layoffs two weeks after facing a six-figure state ethics fine for campaign finance violations.

Scores of workers at the New Georgia Project (NGP) have been laid off since Dec. 27, with a dozen more being pink-slipped at the end of January, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

The group describes itself as a “nonpartisan effort to register, civically engage, and build power with the New Georgia Majority… the growing population of Black, brown, young and other historically marginalized voters.”

It received attention for helping Democrats flip Georgia in 2020 – when Republicans lost both the presidency and its two Senate seats within three months’ time.

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NGP could not be reached by phone and did not respond to a comment request through its contact form.

However, a GoFundMe for affected employees set up by NGP policy director Stephanie Ali described the layoffs and said those subject to the latest round had only three days’ notice.

The GoFundMe description said the NGP “has stated these reductions in force (RIFs) are due to economic downturns, reductions in fundraising in an ‘off’ election year, and other contributing factors.”

Last month, the state ethics commission found both the organization and its political action fund unlawfully performed work for Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial bid while failing to report donations and expenditures.

The Georgia Ethics Commission probed the groups and discovered more than $7 million combined was raised for Abrams – a former state House minority leader from Atlanta – and others that cycle. 

It administered a Peach State record $300,000 fine via a settlement that involved admission of 16 examples of illegal activity, according to Atlanta News First. 

The panel also found that the groups stepped out of legal bounds in connection to a 2019 voter referendum aimed at expanding transit services in Gwinnett County, Georgia’s second-most populous county after Fulton, which includes Atlanta.

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Abrams founded the NGP in 2014, but told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she left the group in 2017 when she decided to run against now-Gov. Brian Kemp.

“The setbacks at NGP are disappointing, and my thoughts are with those laid off,” she told the paper’s “Politically Georgia” vertical. “Regardless of [NGP’s] structure, I will never stop believing in the mission of ensuring every Georgian can make their voice heard.”

After Abrams’ departure, Ebenezer Baptist Church Rev. Raphael Warnock led the group until 2019. Fox News Digital reached out to the now-Democratic U.S. senator for his reaction.

Cody Hall, a senior advisor to Kemp, told Fox News Digital he wondered: “What did Stacey Abrams know and when did she know it?”

“Abrams founded NGP, her people ran it for years, and we’re all supposed to believe she knew nothing? Give us a break,” Hall said.

“Everything we said for the last 10 years about Abrams and her organization was true.”

When asked for comment, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones slammed Abrams for using “activists in the mainstream media to try to pull the wool over Georgians’ eyes.”

The likely future candidate for higher office added Abrams was “embarrassed” by Kemp two cycles in a row and is “embarrassed again” that her group’s “illegal grift is being exposed.”

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“The people of Georgia are good judges of character, and the liberal national media are not. Stacey Abrams will go down as one of the biggest frauds in the history of Georgia politics, but I have no doubt the media will learn nothing from this,” Jones said.

“We as Georgia Republicans must stay ready to defeat whoever the next Marxist grifter is in 2026.”

Georgia’s Republican Senate President John F. Kennedy called the NGP news “the tip of the iceberg” for Abrams.

“How many more millions will she fleece from donors to enrich herself or skirt campaign finance rules until the spigot turns off?” 

Georgia Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, a Democrat, declined comment.

According to Atlanta’s FOX affiliate, NGP helped 55,000 Georgians register to vote, more than 80% of whom were Black and 40% were ages 18-25.