ATLANTA — A political committee chaired by gubernatorial candidate and current Georgia Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger is taking a fight over campaign finance laws in the state to federal court.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court, Safe Affordable Georgia, Inc. is requesting the federal government step in to correct what the organization calls a fundraising inequity.
The lawsuit claims that Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is getting an unfair advantage for his campaign since he is a sitting Lt. Governor. The current campaign law for leadership committees only allows coordination for candidates that have won a primary election for governor or lieutenant governor, or that are in office in those roles.
Currently, Jones is the only candidate in such position.
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Safe Affordable Georgia said in their lawsuit that Georgia law allows some candidates to “directly solicit unlimited contributions to committees that can support their campaigns and permits them to coordinate spending of those unlimited contributions with their campaign committee.”
In this case, the organization says current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is running for governor, is allowed to coordinate his own campaign committee with a leadership committee that he chairs.
Candidates running against him are not allowed to do the same without winning a primary election for either governor or lieutenant governor in Georgia, the lawsuit says.
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According to the court filing, it makes Jones uniquely situated to “solicit and accept unlimited contributions that can support his own campaign.”
To balance things out, the Raffensperger-founded organization is asking a federal judge to allow the Raffensperger campaign and Safe Affordable Georgia to coordinate strategy and spending, while raising and distributing funds in a similar fashion without limit.
The lawsuit says they bring the “case challenging this scheme that allows different campaign finance rules for candidates running for the same office,” not to restrict campaign speech but to “allow all candidates to participate in the same manner.”
The organization’s filing went further, saying that in the U.S., “liberty is the default,” so the best remedy for what they called “uneven speech rights is to remove speech restrictions” and allow campaigns to “level up, not down.”
Jones, Raffensperger and sitting Attorney General Chris Carr are all vying for the governor’s office, though there are 12 candidates for the party and another 11 running for the Democratic primary.
Channel 2 Action News previously covered how Carr sued Jones and associated groups over related issues with the campaign finance setup.
Carr’s federal lawsuit challenged the use of a $10 million loan made to the campaign committee for Jones and a representative for his campaign said the Lt. Governor was “using his position to sidestep contribution limits, raise six-figure checks during legislative sessions, and funnel unlimited money into a competitive primary through a structure only he can access.”
Jones’ campaign rejected that claim, while the Georgia Ethics Commission declined to investigate.
The primary elections for both Republican and Democratic candidates are in May, followed by the general election in November 2026.
Channel 2 Action News has reached out to the campaign for Jones for comment on the claims of unfair advantages.
A campaign spokeswoman said the lawsuit “yet another pathetic legal challenge from candidates who can’t win a primary. Closeted Democrat Brad Raffensperger wouldn’t recognize a Republican voter if they walked into his office - not only because he’s never in his office, but because he’s not a conservative.”
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