Kemp’s Ultimate Goals Now Coming Into View

Privatization of Georgia’s election processes

Hank Sul­li­van

Sep 19, 2023

Dur­ing his run for Gov­er­nor, Bri­an Kemp amassed over $71 mil­lion in lead­er­ship com­mit­tee con­tri­bu­tions to sup­port his cam­paign. Present­ly, it is report­ed Kemp has well exceed­ed that amount in spend­able, favor-grant­i­ng funds, which he can use to aid any polit­i­cal ally, such as those in the gen­er­al assem­bly, who Kemp believes might aid him with spe­cial favors in return. This is how polit­i­cal pow­er operates. 

So, obvi­ous­ly, at this point the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, such as it is, needs Bri­an Kemp, and his mon­ey, much more than Kemp needs the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty. For that rea­son, as he declared in Feb­ru­ary, Bri­an Kemp will indeed, “no longer rely on the tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture (mean­ing the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty) to win in the future.” In essence, Bri­an Kemp has become his own PRIVATE polit­i­cal par­ty, a monarch behold­en to no one, cre­at­ing a nov­el new orga­ni­za­tion that bridges the PUBLIC nature and require­ments of tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture, pass­ing many of its func­tions over to a new PRIVATE polit­i­cal infra­struc­ture which has no pub­lic require­ments, includ­ing very lit­tle gov­ern­ment over­sight, all of that thanks to his Repub­li­can friends in the Geor­gia leg­is­la­ture who gave him what he asked, many who now regret their sup­port. The only real dif­fer­ence between the PUBLIC Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, and the PRIVATE Geor­gia First Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee, is that the lat­ter can­not nom­i­nate can­di­dates for office, nor poten­tial­ly receive bal­lot access for the can­di­dates it supports…yet.

The Plot Thickens

Monar­chi­cal pow­ers now estab­lished in the office of Georgia’s Gov­er­nor, here’s where the sto­ry takes an inter­est­ing turn. Appar­ent­ly Kemp’s plan of leav­ing the Geor­gia GOP behind is much more fun­da­men­tal and pro­found than I pre­vi­ous­ly antic­i­pat­ed, evi­dence of its roots extend­ing back in time to events occur­ring almost a decade ago. That’s when, on Feb­ru­ary 7, 2014, then Sec­re­tary of State Bri­an Kemp’s sig­na­ture cer­ti­fied the cre­ation of a new non-prof­it cor­po­ra­tion, Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.

As the cer­tifi­cate indi­cates, this cor­po­ra­tion came into exis­tence as a result of some­one fil­ing doc­u­ments and pay­ing fees under TITLE 14 of the Offi­cial Code of Geor­gia. Impor­tant­ly, Title 14 is Geor­gia law with regard to CORPORATIONS, not ELECTIONS. TITLE 21 regards POLITICAL PARTIES and ELECTIONS. 

So, who filed the required doc­u­ments and paid the fees nec­es­sary to birth this new “legal per­son” into exis­tence? As you will see in the next exhib­it, that indi­vid­ual would be an attor­ney appar­ent­ly rep­re­sent­ing a cer­tain John Pad­gett, who would become a one-per­son board of direc­tors for this new cor­po­ra­tion, Pad­gett sole­ly autho­rized to exer­cise its powers. 

You may be ask­ing, who is this John Pad­gett? Well, at that time, Mr. Pad­gett was the elect­ed Chair­man of the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty (GRP). By the end of the day on Feb­ru­ary 7th of that year, how­ev­er, John Pad­gett was not only Chair­man of the GRP, a polit­i­cal par­ty pre­sum­ably reg­is­tered at the time with the Sec­re­tary of State under OCGA Title 21-Elec­tions, but also the Chair­man of Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. (GRP Inc.) reg­is­tered that day with the Geor­gia Sec­re­tary of State as a Title 14-Cor­po­ra­tion. The Sec­re­tary of State at the time, whose sig­na­ture appears on the GRP, Inc. cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, was, again, today’s Gov­er­nor, Bri­an Kemp. 

That begs the ques­tion regard­ing the rea­son John Pad­gett, Chair­man of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty (GRP), would reg­is­ter a cor­po­ra­tion by the same name and name him­self chair­man? It seems the only answer any­one ever receives to that ques­tion is that Chair­man Pad­gett found him­self being sued for cer­tain activ­i­ties he alleged­ly under­took while par­ty chair­man, and decid­ed to cre­ate a cor­po­ra­tion by the same name, osten­si­bly to pro­vide a lay­er of lia­bil­i­ty pro­tec­tion for him­self, nev­er mind­ing the fact that were that true, an insur­ance pol­i­cy could afford the same pro­tec­tion, and a new cor­po­ra­tion spring­ing into exis­tence after the alleged activ­i­ties took place, would not aid his defense in any event. Sec­ond­ly, the polit­i­cal par­ty for which he served chair­man already pro­vid­ed insu­la­tion from lia­bil­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with acts com­mit­ted in pur­suit of its law­ful pur­pos­es. As long as the chair­man engaged in law­ful pur­suits in the inter­ests of the par­ty, he would have noth­ing to fear. But even after cre­at­ing a cor­po­rate enti­ty, should a chairman’s pur­suits be out­side of the law, he or she could be sued regard­less. There is much about these alleged events which remains unknown, for exam­ple, well, prac­ti­cal­ly every­thing. Still, if you ask that ques­tion, what I just explained will like­ly be your answer. If you receive a dif­fer­ent response, please let me know. 

By June of that year, Mr. Pad­gett declared him­self both CEO and CFO of GRP, Inc. Pad­gett held both posi­tions until July of 2017, replaced by two indi­vid­u­als, John Wat­son and Mansell McCord. 

Today, accord­ing to the Sec­re­tary of State web­site, the CEO, CFO and Sec­re­tary of GRP, Inc. are Josh McK­oon, Lau­ri McClain and Car­o­line Jef­fords, respec­tive­ly, coin­ci­den­tal­ly the same indi­vid­u­als elect­ed as Chair­man, Trea­sur­er and 1st Sec­re­tary dur­ing the Colum­bus Repub­li­can Con­ven­tion last June. In fact, ever since Mr. Pad­gett left office, the indi­vid­u­als elect­ed to exec­u­tive posi­tions dur­ing bian­nu­al Geor­gia GOP con­ven­tions, includ­ing Wat­son and McCord, some­how, almost mirac­u­lous­ly, with no appar­ent con­nec­tion between the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty and the Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion of the same name, become the CEO, CFO and Sec­re­tary, respec­tive­ly, of Mr. Padgett’s pri­vate corporation. 

Georgia Republican Party Morphs and Becomes Georgia Republican Party, Inc.

Here’s where it all gets weird. Some­how, between Feb­ru­ary 7, 2014 and the next sev­er­al par­ty elec­tion cycles, the Title 21 GRP appar­ent­ly “mor­phed,” soon iden­ti­fy­ing itself as “GRP, Inc.,” effec­tive­ly imper­son­at­ing Mr. Padgett’s Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion while oper­at­ing a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty, clum­si­ly retain­ing the same name it had always been, “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty,” but man­u­al­ly adding “Inc.” to its name on all of its in-house and pub­lic paper­work, in the end, mak­ing the name of the par­ty appear to be “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.” But in real­i­ty, noth­ing with respect to its iden­ti­ty had offi­cial­ly changed. There­fore, the orga­ni­za­tion was still the same “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty” it had always been. GRP, Inc. was, and is, the same cor­po­ra­tion it has been since Feb­ru­ary 7, 2014. But the two are not the same. Sim­ply because you scrib­ble, “Inc.” after your name, that doesn’t mean you are a corporation. 

Regard­less of com­mon sense, as a result, appar­ent­ly, there are now two enti­ties, under dif­fer­ent titles of law oper­at­ing as “GRP, Inc.”, the Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion of Mr. Pad­gett which is still around, but also a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty, GRP, imper­son­at­ing Mr. Padgett’s Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion. Why would they do that? 

For some rea­son, those at the helm of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty have been deter­mined to mask their orga­ni­za­tion to resem­ble and iden­ti­fy as a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion. They con­trol both orga­ni­za­tions, main­tain­ing the annu­al reg­is­tra­tions of the Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion, GRP, Inc., while pub­licly por­tray­ing the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty to be one and the same with it. 

That being the case, appar­ent­ly, oth­ers have been work­ing in the gov­ern­ment to hide the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty from pub­lic view as well. Repeat­ed open records requests to the Geor­gia Sec­re­tary of State’s office, as well as the Geor­gia Archives, ask­ing to receive reg­is­tra­tion cer­tifi­cates for “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty,” turn up noth­ing, the Open Records Request Offi­cers con­sis­tent­ly evad­ing ques­tions, los­ing records requests, and ulti­mate­ly deny­ing the pos­ses­sion of any such records. Thus, appar­ent­ly, the records in ques­tion have either been destroyed, lost or are locked away where no one work­ing to ful­fill open records requests can gain access. 

Why would any­one destroy or lock away reg­is­tra­tion records of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty? I can­not say for sure, how­ev­er, it appears that the GRP (the par­ty not the cor­po­ra­tion) is no longer offi­cial­ly active with the Sec­re­tary of State, and has been effec­tive­ly replaced by its cor­po­rate cousin of near­ly the same name, “GRP, Inc.” Per­haps those who are behind all this do not want knowl­edge of this appar­ent unlaw­ful and decep­tive arrange­ment avail­able to the pub­lic, efforts to hide those records adding to the appar­ent unlaw­ful or crim­i­nal nature of all we are uncov­er­ing here. 

So, let’s be clear. A cor­po­ra­tion can­not “iden­ti­fy” as a polit­i­cal par­ty, and vice ver­sa, any more than a rab­bit can “iden­ti­fy” as a hen house. There are no pow­ers or priv­i­leges vest­ed in Title 14 cor­po­ra­tions, for exam­ple, to nom­i­nate can­di­dates for elect­ed offices and receive bal­lot access. If there were such pow­ers and priv­i­leges, they would be enu­mer­at­ed under Title 14. But they are not… 

…at least not yet.

That brings us to the next ques­tion: Giv­en that the Title 14 GRP, Inc. “cor­po­ra­tion” has no pow­er nor priv­i­lege to nom­i­nate can­di­dates for elect­ed office, and giv­en no acces­si­ble evi­dence that a Title 21 GRP “polit­i­cal par­ty” is active or even reg­is­tered in Geor­gia at this time, and giv­en that those who pur­port to be run­ning the “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty” are using Title 14 cor­po­rate rules, adopt­ed June 17, 2020, rather than Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty rules, who or what enti­ty law­ful­ly nom­i­nat­ed the 2022 Repub­li­can slate of statewide can­di­dates, Bri­an Kemp, Brad Raf­fensperg­er, Chris Carr, or even Burt Jones to place them on the statewide Geor­gia bal­lot? Cor­po­ra­tions have no law­ful bal­lot access. The state Repub­li­can Par­ty, what­ev­er that means at this point, pub­licly oper­ates under cor­po­rate, “GRP, Inc. Rules” and has since at least 2020. Those facts bring us to an impas­si­ble inter­sec­tion, red lights in all direc­tions. Thus, I am quite seri­ous when I ask, are these peo­ple tru­ly elect­ed office hold­ers? I’m real­ly not con­fi­dent to say. 

The Fishy Republican Fish Fry

A polit­i­cal par­ty is a pub­lic orga­ni­za­tion, open to any­one who claims alle­giance to its beliefs and pur­pos­es. No one who pledges sup­port can be turned away. A cor­po­ra­tion, how­ev­er, is a pri­vate orga­ni­za­tion with full con­trol over its mem­ber­ship. If you attend­ed the recent Per­ry, Geor­gia “Repub­li­can Fish Fry” wear­ing a T‑shirt embla­zoned with, “Paper Bal­lots Please,” like the gen­tle­men speak­ing in this video, secu­ri­ty guards like­ly con­front­ed you and told you to leave or change shirts. One such exchange is caught on this video. At time­stamp 4:15, one attendee asks the guard, “Is this a Repub­li­can event?” The guard answers, “This is a pri­vate event.”

Giv­en the mount­ing evi­dence that the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty is in fact mas­querad­ing as the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc., a PRIVATE, non-prof­it cor­po­ra­tion, if the con­tract signed to rent the venue reflects that infor­ma­tion, the guard in the video could be cor­rect, or at least fooled into say­ing the fish fry was indeed a pri­vate event. That being the case, he would also be law­ful in refus­ing entrance to indi­vid­u­als the pri­vate orga­niz­ers decid­ed to exclude. And it is look­ing very much like that might be the case.

Kemp At The Center Of It All

At the heart of all of this con­fu­sion is ‘pre­sumed’ Geor­gia Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp. I say Kemp is ‘pre­sumed’ gov­er­nor because until we see the reg­is­tra­tion of his nom­i­na­tion (which I am wait­ing to receive via ORR) I can­not say with con­fi­dence that he was ever law­ful­ly nom­i­nat­ed by the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, or unlaw­ful­ly by a Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion, per­haps with under­hand­ed coop­er­a­tion from Georgia’s Sec­re­tary of State. Remem­ber, it was Kemp who in 2014 signed the reg­is­tra­tion cer­tifi­cate of “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.,” birthing that legal “per­son” into exis­tence with a name decep­tive­ly sim­i­lar to “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty.” If GRP, Inc. were to become effec­tive­ly rec­og­nized by the Sec­re­tary of State as a duly-func­tion­ing Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty, rather than a pure, Title 14 non-prof­it cor­po­ra­tion as it is reg­is­tered, that recog­ni­tion would vio­late OCGA 21–2‑110© regard­ing “decep­tive­ly sim­i­lar names,” that is, except for one pos­si­bil­i­ty. That would be the rev­e­la­tion that the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty actu­al­ly no longer offi­cial­ly exists, a pos­si­bil­i­ty which appar­ent­ly can­not be refuted. 

But, as we have not­ed, a Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion can­not exist as a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty any­way, at least not under present law. That said, defy­ing the law, Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, Sec­re­tary of State Brad Raf­fensperg­er and would-be pros­e­cu­tor Chris Carr appear fine that either can become the oth­er at will. In this video Kemp responds to relat­ed ques­tions, answer­ing, “That would be an issue with the par­ty, and with their incor­po­ra­tion,” addi­tion­al­ly claim­ing that his sig­na­ture on the GRP, Inc. reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments 9 years ago was due to a “seam­less” reg­is­tra­tion process involv­ing “ink machines.” Appar­ent­ly, the use of ink machines as tools of con­ve­nience now excus­es all errors com­mit­ted by elect­ed officials. 

Speak­ing on these same issues, Attor­ney Josh McK­oon, the elect­ed Geor­gia Repub­li­can Chair­man of “some­thing” at the June Colum­bus con­ven­tion, tells Todd Wood, “The rules [Which rules, Josh? GRP rules or GRP, Inc. rules?] real­ly gov­ern how we oper­ate,” and that once the Colum­bus con­ven­tion adjourned, “the state com­mit­tee becomes the gov­ern­ing body… and IF OUR BYLAWS AND CORPORATE DOCUMENTS DON’T REFLECT THAT, AND I DON’T BELIEVE THEY REALLY DO RIGHT NOW, WE NEED TO AMEND THEM TO TAKE CARE OF THAT.” 

Take a moment and read what Chair­man McK­oon said one more time: “If our bylaws and cor­po­rate doc­u­ments don’t reflect that…” What bylaws? What cor­po­rate documents? 

In the video, Josh McK­oon, pre­sumed by all del­e­gates attend­ing the June Colum­bus con­ven­tion to be elect­ed Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty (GRP) Chair­man, appar­ent­ly believes the orga­ni­za­tion he serves is NOT gov­erned by GRP par­ty rules, but instead by cer­tain “bylaws and cor­po­rate doc­u­ments.” The “bylaws” the “par­ty” dis­sem­i­nates from the gagop.org web­site are the “Rules of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.” The “cor­po­rate doc­u­ments” to which he refers can only there­fore be the annu­al cor­po­rate fil­ings with the Sec­re­tary of State, and inter­nal doc­u­ments of the same cor­po­rate entity. 

That’s because only Title 14 cor­po­ra­tions have “cor­po­rate doc­u­ments.” Title 21 Polit­i­cal par­ties do not have “cor­po­rate doc­u­ments.” And as you can see below, accord­ing to the Geor­gia Sec­re­tary of State web­site, by virtue of his Colum­bus con­ven­tion vic­to­ry, Josh McK­oon also some­how became CEO of GRP, Inc.

(Please know, writ­ing this piece is as men­tal­ly exhaust­ing as read­ing it.) 

Summarizing What We Know

So, let’s try to sum­ma­rize what we have learned before continuing: 

1. Before Feb­ru­ary 7, 2014, there exist­ed a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty known as “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Party.”
2. After Feb­ru­ary 7, 2014, there exist­ed a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty known as “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty,” plus a Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion known as “Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.”
3. At some time between Feb­ru­ary 7, 2014 and now, those at the helm of the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty appar­ent­ly began a pro­gram imper­son­at­ing the Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion of the same name.
4. Dur­ing this time, con­trol of the Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion of the same name was giv­en over to those at the helm of the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty imper­son­at­ing the Title 14 corporation.
5. Those offi­cial­ly at the helm of the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty and the helm of the Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion are always the same peo­ple.
6. Nei­ther the Geor­gia Sec­re­tary of State, nor the Geor­gia Archives can seem­ing­ly present evi­dence that the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty exists.
7. Because the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty active­ly imper­son­ates a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion, that cor­po­ra­tion being the Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion of the same name, third par­ties such as the guards at the Fish Fry venue in Per­ry, Geor­gia have been led to believe they were doing busi­ness with a pri­vate enti­ty, rather than a pub­lic entity.
8. Pre­vi­ous Sec­re­tary of State, now Gov­er­nor, Bri­an Kemp, and present Sec­re­tary of State Brad Raf­fensperg­er appear just fine to allow the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty to rep­re­sent itself as either a polit­i­cal par­ty, or as a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion, as those at the helm decide from moment-to-moment, mak­ing no difference.
9. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Chris Carr is asleep at the wheel.
10. Bri­an Kemp, Brad Raf­fensperg­er and Chris Carr all see this and are con­tent allow­ing all to con­tin­ue. Why?

What Is This Comedy of Errors All About?

Noth­ing I can see in the Title 21 Geor­gia elec­toral process­es explains a press­ing need for non-prof­it cor­po­ra­tions to exist in the elec­tion process­es of Geor­gia. This insane plan to mix a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty with Title 14 pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion has proven dis­as­trous. Every­one involved appears stu­pid, and that is being nice. Per­haps every­one IS stu­pid. So, is that the prob­lem, every­one is just stupid? 

Maybe.

Are Kemp, Raf­fensperg­er and Chris Carr, all watch­ing this, just as stupid? 

Maybe, but don’t think so. All this non­sense is just waaaay too easy to fix. Those at the helm of the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty just need to cor­rect their paper­work, remov­ing all those scrib­bled in “Inc.’s,” dis­solve Mr. Padgett’s Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion and don’t look back. Why won’t they do that? After all, if the rea­son for the cor­po­ra­tion is to lim­it lia­bil­i­ty, just imag­ine the poten­tial lia­bil­i­ty these peo­ple have opened them­selves to for unlaw­ful impersonation. 

I expect the answer lies in the cryp­tic words of ‘pre­sumed’ Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, that he and his pri­vate, Geor­gia First sup­port­ers “can no longer rely on the tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture to win in the future.” Does the “gov­er­nor” expect us to believe he did not know that in 2014, his good friend, John Pad­gett, the chair­man of Kemp’s par­ty, incor­po­rat­ed an enti­ty known as Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. under Kemp’s nose while he was Sec­re­tary of State? Are we sup­posed to believe the ‘ink machine’ is respon­si­ble for cer­ti­fy­ing the “par­ty incor­po­ra­tion” as Kemp called it, and Kemp had no knowl­edge and no part in it? Do for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Kemp and ATTORNEY, now par­ty chair­man, Josh McK­oon, not real­ize what they are say­ing in legal terms when they refer to the “party’s incor­po­ra­tion” and “cor­po­rate doc­u­ments” respectively? 

Bri­an Kemp has no love for rank and file, grass roots, con­ser­v­a­tive Geor­gia Repub­li­can vot­ers. He demon­strat­ed his dis­dain toward them elect­ing not to attend the June Repub­li­can Con­ven­tion. He has effec­tive­ly desert­ed the par­ty faith­ful for a new love, his own pri­vate, well-fund­ed, PRIVATE, quazi-polit­i­cal par­ty, Geor­gia First, orphan­ing the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, what­ev­er that term still means, to grass roots adoption. 

Bri­an Kemp’s polit­i­cal sup­port derives from busi­ness inter­ests both domes­tic and for­eign, cor­po­ra­tions, LLC’s and wealthy patrons who demon­strate their sup­port by con­tribut­ing to his pri­vate, Geor­gia First Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee. As long as Kemp sits in the governor’s seat, he can con­tin­ue to raise funds using Geor­gia First, and ignore any sem­blance of a rela­tion­ship with the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, that is, up to the point when he might need bal­lot access for can­di­dates. Geor­gia First is a lead­er­ship com­mit­tee. It has no bal­lot access. Giv­en all we now know, I would not be sur­prised should Bri­an Kemp cause new leg­is­la­tion to drop, open­ing the door for pri­vate polit­i­cal par­ties to gain bal­lot access in Geor­gia elec­tions. Should that occur and pass, his lead­er­ship com­mit­tee would like­ly give way to a “Geor­gia First Par­ty.” I expect that kind of leg­is­la­tion could be accom­plished by append­ing exist­ing law with 15–20 lines. Per­haps it is already writ­ten. Kemp has the fund­ing to make pass­ing that leg­is­la­tion palat­able to many Repub­li­cans, and per­haps even Democ­rats in the Gen­er­al Assem­bly. If that hap­pens, you can be sure the law’s sup­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty will have been already been arranged. 

You Can’t Take It With You…Or Can You?

Now, who thinks Bri­an Kemp will send the unused funds from the Geor­gia First Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee back to con­trib­u­tors when he leaves office? I’m sor­ry, but that’s not going to hap­pen. SB221 allows the gov­er­nor to retain con­trol over those funds and place them into a “non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion.” Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, GRP, Inc. is one such non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion. Imag­ine Bri­an Kemp pass­ing leg­is­la­tion allow­ing pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions, such as GRP, Inc., to qual­i­fy as polit­i­cal par­ties and obtain bal­lot access. Is that too far out to con­sid­er? What were you think­ing might be to be too far out to con­sid­er five years ago? Were that leg­is­la­tion to pass, he could cre­ate his own, pri­vate, non-prof­it, cor­po­rate polit­i­cal par­ty, call­ing it, say, “Geor­gia First, Inc.,” trans­fer in all the unused funds from Geor­gia First Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee, right now total­ing around $80 mil­lion, and he would be off to the races con­trol­ling elec­tions in Geor­gia, and per­haps beyond, the “King-mak­er” for life. 

What I describe here are the pos­si­bil­i­ties. Will this hap­pen? I have no idea. But I showed what all this seem­ing­ly points to. Should Bri­an Kemp exe­cute the plan I just showed you, I would not be sur­prised. Per­haps pub­li­ciz­ing this pos­si­bil­i­ty could change plans, I don’t know. 

The cor­po­ra­ti­za­tion of our gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions has been in process for many years. The McCain-Fein­gold PAC and Super­PAC sys­tem is a good exam­ple. Amer­i­ca, and Geor­gia in par­tic­u­lar, are on the precipice of ful­ly redefin­ing our gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions from those of a repub­lic, to those of a cor­po­rate-fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship. The pri­va­tiz­ing of our polit­i­cal par­ty sys­tems is an essen­tial ingre­di­ent should that be among Kemp’s ulti­mate goals. 

Giv­en these facts, what else could they be?