Ethics complaint dismissed against Lisa Borders
May 5, 2009 at 4:30 pm by Scott Henry in NewsYou’d have to be a hopeless local politics wonk — or a reporter — to even have been aware that Borders was the subject of an ethics complaint. Now that it’s been dismissed, you can return to your state of blissful and well-earned ignorance. You’re welcome, however, to read on if you’re one of the aforementioned hopeless wonks.
Right off the bat, I should mention that Borders wasn’t accused of any of the typical charges against elected officials — missed document-filing deadlines, misappropriation of campaign funds, nepotism, coprophilia, etc. Instead, the allegation was that the Atlanta City Council President engaged in improper lobbying during the 2007 General Assembly on behalf of her then-employer, Cousins Properties.
If the complaint had been found valid, Borders could have been fined. But even worse would’ve been the embarrassment and distraction from her mayoral campaign. As it was, the accusation was dismissed because the only evidence of wrong-doing was circumstantial — although eyebrow-raising to many at the Gold Dome.
I was among those who spotted Borders at the Capitol on the last night of the Legislature. She was seen chatting outside the House chamber with Cousins lobbyist Wendi Clifton and several other people, including some lawmakers. The scuttlebutt at the time was that she was lobbying for SB 200, the so-called “private cities” bill, a development measure that Cousins was backing. The bill passed, but the proposal was rejected by voters when it appeared on last November’s statewide ballot.
Someone not registered as a lobbyist — and Borders was not — is prohibited under Georgia law from lobbying on behalf of another party for compensation. But, without knowing what Borders talked about with lawmakers that evening two years ago, the state Ethics Commission threw out the complaint rather than accept its contention that the conversations themselves amounted to “obvious lobbying.” (Thanks to Atlanta Unfiltered for doing the footwork.)
Granted, the backlogged Commission decided not to call in any witnesses, but the allegation would’ve been difficult to prove under any circumstances.
So, why was the Ethics Commission only now investigating an infraction that happened two years back, if at all? Because the complaint wasn’t filed until last fall. And, believe it or not, the main goal was not to hurt Borders politically; at that point, she had already dropped out of the mayor’s race. Rather, longtime Sierra Club lobbyist Neill Herring apparently filed the complaint largely to create negative publicity for the public referendum on SB 200, which was then only a month away. We were among those who obligingly wrote about it at the time.
Because the wheels of ethics turn so slowly in Georgia, the board didn’t get around to holding an initial hearing on the accusation until December, after the “private cities” legislation had already been shit-canned by voters. So the recent dismissal of the complaint feels even more anti-climactic than most of the board’s actions.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
Leave a Reply