By SHANNON McCAFFREY
The Associated Press
Three Republican state lawmakers dismissed an ethics complaint against Gov. Sonny Perdue lawyer Larry O’Neal Wednesday, saying the $100,000 tax break he is accused of engineering for the governor occurred too long ago for them to investigate.
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson said the ethics panel had simply followed the law, which he said bans them from considering conduct before Jan. 9, 2006 when the committee was created.
But Johnson and House Speaker Glenn Richardson also lambasted the media for following the story and sharply questioned the merits of the complaint, which was filed by a former state Democratic Party researcher.
“This crap that’s been submitted is nothing more than partisan politics being played and belittles the process,” Johnson said in a telephone interview.
Richardson called it “ridiculous and outrageous.” Edward Chapman, who submitted the complaint, labeled the committee’s actions “a joke.”
“Clearly this committee’s MO is to dismiss, attack, intimidate,” Chapman said. “This committee is cheating taxpayers out of more money than Larry and Sonny.”
The case had been viewed by a prominent Georgia watchdog as the first real test of the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee, created as part of Georgia’s ethics reform law in 2005.
Bill Bozarth, executive director of the Georgia arm of Common Cause, expressed disappointment.
“Technically it may be correct that they can only address things that happened after January 2006,” Bozarth said. “I don’t see any reason they couldn’t have looked into it if they chose to.”
The letter of dismissal from the three-member review panel also criticized Chapman for using newspaper reports as the basis for his complaint saying they are hearsay. “As such they are not admissible as evidence in a court of record,” the letter said.
Bozarth called that standard too high.
“To expect a level equal to what you would see in a court of law is an unfair and unrealistic standard for them to meet,” he said.
But Johnson said the process was designed so that those with firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing by state lawmakers could come forward.
The letter of dismissal was circulated to reporters after 5 p.m. on Valentine’s Day.
The complaint alleges that state Rep. Larry O’Neal misused his elected office to benefit Perdue, his client. It centered on a sweeping tax bill O’Neal sponsored in 2005. Part of the legislation was made retroactive to 2004, effectively covering Perdue’s sale of family land in middle Georgia in 2004 and his purchase of property in Florida, near Disney World, from a wealthy Republican developer later that year.
The retroactive provision saved Perdue about $100,000 in state capital gains taxes. Perdue signed the bill into law in April 2005 but has said he did not know he would benefit from it at the time.
Attempts to reach O’Neal on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
The three-member review panel which rejected the complaint was composed of Johnson, Richardson and state Sen. Seth Harp, R-Midland.
Chapman had called on Richardson to recuse himself from the process because he had been publicly supportive of O’Neal in a House GOP Caucus meeting soon after the November election.
Richardson refused.
A complaint must be reviewed by a three-member review panel before being forwarded to the full Joint Legislative Ethics Committee. That committee has yet to hear a complaint.
