Judge Jane Barwick, Fulton County Superior Court, and Athens solo attorney Stephen Humphreys.

A Fulton County judge has rejected a tea party activist's bid to dodge $30,000 in fines levied by Georgia's ethics agency, which determined that four organizations she founded between 2011 and 2014 raised money and engaged in political advocacy without registering with the state.

Cherokee County activist Carolyn Cosby was hit the fines last year after the state Government Transparency & Campaign Finance Commission received complaints that a half-dozen groups she led—Canton Tea Party Patriots, the Citizens Review and Recommendations Committee, the Canton T.E.A. Party, Expose Bobo Boondoggle Now, Citizens Opposed to Spiraling Taxation and Georgians for Health Care Freedom—failed to register prior to engaging in lobbying, accepting contributions or expending funds for political advocacy.    

After multiple hearings, the commission determined there were reasonable grounds to believe each group had violated the state's campaign finance and disclosure law, and the state Law Department filed six cases with the Office of State Administrative Hearings, which consolidated them.

In 2017, an administrative law judge declined Cosby's motion to dismiss the cases and found that four of the groups had failed to register and file the required disclosure forms before engaging in political advocacy

Cosby, as “the owner, leader, and chairman of these independent committees,” was fined $30,000.

Cosby filed a petition for judicial review last year with the Fulton County Superior Court, arguing the commission's finding was both erroneous and a violation of her First Amendment guarantee of free speech. Cosby also argued that the commission's findings were arbitrary and capricious.

The office of Attorney General Chris Carr argued that the record clearly indicates the groups' actions violated the law, and that “it is well settled that requiring registration and disclosure of expenditures on express political advocacy does not violate the First Amendment.”   

After hearing oral arguments, Judge Jane Barwick issued a two-sentence ruling on July 30 denying Cosby's appeal.

Cosby's attorney, Athens solo Stephen Humphreys, filed a motion for reconsideration last week.

“Under the law, Judge Barwick is the first judge hearing the case who has the authority to consider the First Amendment issues we raised, and her order completely ignored those constitutional issues,” he said.

The ethics commission's actions in levying the fines—far larger than those customarily assessed by the agency—defy logic, Humphreys said.   

“They ran up these huge fines against Carolyn by saying she had more than one group, and the administrative law judge treated her as a multiple, repeat offender,” he said. “But this is the first time any of this has been adjudicated, and nobody has addressed any of that.”

A spokeswoman for Carr's office declined to comment.