Georgia’s Cash-Fueled Circus: Leadership PAC Loopholes

In this fiery episode of The Geor­gia Hour, host BKP dives head­first into the murky waters of Geor­gia pol­i­tics, rail­ing against the “absurd but legal” flood of mon­ey pow­er­ing the state’s pow­er play­ers. Kick­ing off with a cri­tique of Patri­cia Mur­phy’s AJC opin­ion piece on the 2021 Ethics in Gov­ern­ment Act, BKP expos­es how lead­er­ship PACs—meant to curb lob­by­ing influ­ence dur­ing leg­isla­tive sessions—have become glo­ri­fied slush funds, allow­ing incum­bents like Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to amass $14 mil­lion (includ­ing a mas­sive $10 mil­lion self-loan) while chal­lengers scram­ble. He blasts the sys­tem for let­ting law­mak­ers side­step indi­vid­ual dona­tion bans by fun­nel­ing cash through these com­mit­tees dur­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sions, vow­ing that end­ing this “cam­paign finance night­mare” should be pri­or­i­ty one for any seri­ous guber­na­to­r­i­al hopeful—though he’d need $5 mil­lion him­self to throw his hat in the ring.

The rant heats up with U.S. Rep. Bud­dy Carter’s con­gres­sion­al bid, where the self-financed “MAGA war­rior” from St. Simons Island boasts $3.9 mil­lion in cash on hand after rais­ing $1 mil­lion last quar­ter, sly­ly shad­ing rivals Mike Collins and Der­rick Doo­ley by not­ing he “did­n’t inher­it any­thing from daddy”—a line that leaves BKP pon­der­ing broad­er fam­i­ly for­tune jabs in oth­er races. Amid the mon­ey talk, BKP con­grat­u­lates long­time GOP oper­a­tive Bil­ly Kirk­land on his new gig as Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or under Trump, while ques­tion­ing why Democ­rats are hunt­ing for a Labor Com­mis­sion­er chal­lenger when Gov. Bri­an Kemp already appoint­ed one (for­mer Albany Cham­ber chair­woman). He also spot­lights AG Chris Carr dis­tanc­ing him­self from Trump loy­al­ists by oppos­ing the ex-pres­i­den­t’s weaponiza­tion of the jus­tice sys­tem for “polit­i­cal scores,” hint­ing at deep­er GOP frac­tures.

Wrap­ping with a whirl­wind of side-eye and sar­casm, BKP mocks lav­ish GOP steak din­ners at Blue Ridge Grill fund­ed by GAGOP cards (“I love spend­ing your mon­ey!”), skew­ers first-dis­trict hope­ful Kan­diss Tay­lor’s pend­ing endorse­ment from con­tro­ver­sial pod­cast­er Stew Peters (the “noose-wield­ing” fig­ure her kids call “Uncle Stu”), and flags an open Sec­re­tary of State probe into alleged vot­er fraud by Bran­don Phillips—Mike Collins’ chief of staff and cam­paign consultant—who’s accused of vot­ing from a vacant house in the sec­ond dis­trict, per Scott Howard’s Sub­stack deep dive. True to form, BKP signs off with a call to his “pushy” research team for tomor­row’s assign­ments, urg­ing view­ers to “throw up a num­ber two” and dodge the “albi­no rhi­no” chaos.