Lobbyist's ties to Sailor under scrutiny

The state's Ethics Commission is looking into possible violations by a lobbyist, whose company allegedly lent state Representative Ron Sailor eighty thousand dollars last year. The loan wasn't disclosed until Monday night. Sailor, a Democrat from Decatur, accepted the loan in February of 2007 from a payday lending company owned by lobbyist Willie Green. The loan should have been reported the following month.

Rick Thompson, Executive Secretary for Georgia's Ethics Commission, says it wasn't: “An amended disclosure report by the lobbyist that was identified in the newspaper article has been submitted last night to identify a loan. So we'll look into it a little further, and see why it wasn't reported timely.”

Green's lawyer says the lobbyist did not realize that loans to public officials had to be disclosed until after reporters contacted him on Monday. Last year, Green was pushing for the passage of a payday lending bill that ultimately failed, and Sailor was one of a handful of Democrats who supported it. Sailor pleaded guilty in federal court last week to money laundering.

(Odette Yousef, WABE Atlanta)

Georgia chief justice to pay ethics fines

$3,100 will be paid by Georgia’s top judge for violation of state ethics laws. The fines to be paid by Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears are part of a pair of consent orders approved by the state Ethics Commission on Thursday.

The ethics complaints come from her 2004 re-election campaign. The charges included Sears taking contributions above the state’s 5-thousand dollar legal limit--including one of 20-thousand from a law firm. Sears also admitted to some misreporting of campaign finance information.

In other decisions by the Ethics Commission: It found probable cause to look into an parts of an ethics complaint against former Democratic candidate for governor Cathy Cox. The charges involve her 2001 re-election for Secretary of State.