Ethics Commission
cites anti-SPLOST action committee By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer
Georgia's Ethics
Commission Monday cited anti-sales tax advocate
Carl Avrit for failure to identify his
organization in phone messages last September,
but chose not to levy a fine.
Avrit and his
lawyer, Don Johnson, said they will appeal the
ruling, which includes an order to cease and
disist.
Avrit is head of
the political action committee Fayette Citizens
for Better Government, which launched a
last-minute phone blitz in opposition to the
Fayette Board of Education's special purpose
local option sales tax referendum Sept. 21.
This was a
political decision by a political body,
Avrit said following the Ethics Commission
hearing Monday morning. The decision was a
miscarriage of justice, he added.
Janet Smola,
cochairman of a political action committee that
supported the 1 percent sales tax for school
improvements and construction, filed the
complaint against Avrit.
I feel like
the voters of Fayette County have been
vindicated, Smola said following the
decision.
The last-minute
phone campaign consisted of two different
prerecorded messages. The phone messages received
by Fayette County voters instructed them to vote
against the $91 million spending package. There
was no tag line, or disclaimer, which is required
on politically generated print ads or TV spots.
John Garst of
Rosetta Stone Communications, the firm that Avrit
used to place the calls, said tag lines were
not standard industry procedure. Literally,
it's never been done, Garst told the
commission. No distinction was made between
politically generated phone calls and printed
material being called advertisement
by the commission.
The vote was 4-1
citing the lack of identification on the calls as
a statute violation. Commissioner Sam Nicholson
said that voters are entitled to know who
is spending the money, in this case $900,
when a group is trying to influence an election.
Johnson, who
represented Avrit before the commission, asked
that the complaint be dropped based on
constitutional grounds and improper venue. Both
motions were overruled by commission Chairman
Michael McCrae. Johnson tried to prove that the
definition of referendum was vague
and Douglas County, where the hearing took place,
was not his client's home county.
He called the
special local option sales tax referendum a
ballot question, which he said should
negate the need for a tag line on the calls.
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