A Republican Party lawyer's complaint against an attorney, who sued the GOP for libel and flipped a long-held state House Republican seat, has been dismissed by the state elections board.

The administrative complaint—one of three filed by GOP deputy counsel Vincent Russo against Atlanta attorney Josh McLaurin last year—served as the basis for incendiary political mailers circulated by the Republican Party in the run-up to the 2018 election.

McLaurin, a Sandy Springs Democrat, is a litigation associate with Atlanta's Krevolin & Horst.

The mailers claimed McLaurin was the subject of multiple criminal investigations involving alleged "false swearing" and illegally accessing the state's online voter registration system, even though an administrative law judge determined McLaurin was legally qualified to run.

The board threw out Russo's complaint on the recommendation of its investigator, said McLaurin attorney Scott Holcomb, a state representative and a partner at Atlanta's Holcomb+Ward.

Russo complained that McLaurin lied on his candidate qualification papers about how long he had lived in Georgia so he could run for public office.

Scott Holcomb. Scott Holcomb, Holcomb+ Ward, Atlanta. (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

"It was character assassination through the legal process," Holcomb said of the dismissed complaint.

"The law and the facts are very clear that Mr. McLaurin was qualified" to run, Holcomb said. "He satisfied both the constitutional and statutory requirements for residency."

The dismissal of Russo's complaint marks the third victory for McLaurin over multiple efforts by the state GOP to tarnish and disqualify him as a candidate for the open seat long held by Republican lawyer Wendell Willard. Willard, Sandy Springs' city attorney, was the longtime chairman of the state House Judiciary Committee when he retired last year.

Russo—a partner with The Robbins Firm in Atlanta who also served as counsel to Gov. Brian Kemp's gubernatorial campaign—filed the administrative complaint three days after the secretary of state signed off on a decision by a state administrative law judge to toss out a nearly identical challenge to McLaurin's candidacy. Russo also filed that initial complaint.

Russo also filed a third administrative complaint that is still pending. Russo said he filed the second and third complaints on his own behalf, not for the state GOP.

Russo filed the first complaint challenging McLaurin's Georgia residency for Gabriel Sterling, a longtime Sandy Springs Republican who now serves as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's chief operating officer. Russo's co-counsel was David Dove, Kemp's legal counsel and chief of staff when Kemp was secretary of state. Dove became Kemp's executive counsel after he became governor.

McLaurin's Republican opponent, Sandy Springs attorney Alex Kaufman, had no direct link to the administrative complaints against his opponent, but the GOP mailers were clearly intended to benefit his campaign.

Holcomb has twice argued successfully that state law requires candidates to have lived in the state for two years by Election Day, not by the date they qualify to run for office.

But Russo contended that McLaurin must have lived in Georgia for two years when he qualified to run. Russo said he filed the follow-up complaint personally, not on behalf of the GOP.

In addition to beating back Russo's administrative complaints, McLaurin also secured a settlement agreement last November from the state GOP that it would stop funding or assisting in the creation and distribution of the incendiary mailers. The settlement was reached after McLaurin sued the GOP for libel.

"I'm obviously pleased," McLaurin said Thursday. "But I want people to recognize that there are lawyers out there who are using election law as a weapon."

"In a fake news era when distrust is at an all-time high, I think we need to be especially wary of members of the bar who choose to engage in allegations like this and ask ourselves whether this is the way we want politics to be conducted in our state," he added.

Russo said he wasn't at Wednesday's hearing, because he wasn't notified the board intended to address his complaint.

"I think we can all agree that the [candidate] qualifying form could be clearer to avoid this type of issue in the future," he said.

Holcomb agreed that some clarifying language on the qualification forms may be warranted. But, he added, "Although it seemed like there was some lack of clarity as to which election triggers the statue and the constitutional [residence] requirement, in my mind there was none at all. Josh's interpretation of the document was right. … How long he had spent in Georgia as of the date of the [qualifying] affidavit is not relevant. It's with respect to the date of the election."

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