Georgia House passes bill targeting political spending from ‘hostile’ foreign agents

A bill seeking to mandate disclosure of political spending in Georgia from countries designated as hostile foreign adversaries passed the House Monday in a 98-65 vote that fell largely along party lines. Senate Bill 177, which was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte, would mandate that anyone working on behalf of “hostile” foreign governments […]

A bill seeking to mandate disclosure of political spending in Georgia from countries designated as hostile foreign adversaries passed the House Monday in a 98-65 vote that fell largely along party lines.

Senate Bill 177, which was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte, would mandate that anyone working on behalf of “hostile” foreign governments — and the political organizations that accept donations from foreign agents — register with the state ethics commission. It would also impose a fine of up to $200,000 for failing to disclose such funding. 

The bill passed the Senate last year mostly along partisan lines.

Rep. Joseph Gullett, a Dallas Republican who sponsored the bill in the House, said the goal is to increase public knowledge of political spending without unnecessarily targeting business activity.

“Transparency protects policymakers, transparency protects voters, and transparency ultimately strengthens public trust in our institutions,” he said in a speech on the House floor Monday.

The original bill specifically named North Korea, Iran, China and Russia as hostile foreign governments, though that language was stripped out of the version that passed the House. The revised version of the bill relies on the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s list of foreign adversaries.  

The bill would not apply to trade organizations and public policy groups formed before 1950. Democrat Eric Gisler, a Watkinsville Democrat, argued that those guidelines would exclude groups like the National Rifle Association, which was founded in 1871, from being subject to disclosure requirements. In 2018, the NRA was found to have accepted more than $2,500 in donations from at least 20 contributors with Russian ties.

Rep. Saira Draper, an Atlanta Democrat, criticized the bill in a speech on the floor of the House, arguing that members of President Donald Trump’s family have publicly engaged in business deals with some of the countries the bill is designed to cover.

“What I cannot do is accept the premise that this concern is being applied consistently,” she said. “Not when the political party presenting this bill has a documented record of tolerating, enabling, and in some cases directly profiting from precisely the line of foreign financial entanglement that this bill claims to target.”

“It consecrates prosecutorial power against political opponents, while immunizing those in power,” she added.

But Rep. James Burchett, a Waycross Republican, refuted claims that the bill was motivated by partisan interests.

“The question isn’t whether you trust Republicans or Democrats,” he said. “The question is whether you trust foreign adversaries. I do not.”

Democrats like Rep. Long Tran, a Dunwoody Democrat, also criticized the bill, arguing that its language could be broad enough to encompass a wide range of Georgia businesses with international ties, forcing them to jump through burdensome new regulations.

“Those foreign enemy governments, they’re not the ones that are going to be filling out the paperwork with the state ethics commission,” Tran said. “They will not be the ones paying the compliance costs. They will not be the ones who face the civil penalties. It will be Georgia businesses.”

In 2024, the state Legislature passed a similar measure, Senate Bill 368, which would have required lobbyists and consultants to disclose whether they were working on behalf of any foreign government, as well as banning all foreign donations to Georgia-based candidates, campaigns and political action committees. It was vetoed by Gov. Brian Kemp, who in a statement at the time said foreign campaign contributions were already prohibited by federal law. The bill’s sponsor, Milledgeville Republican Sen. Rick Williams, said that the bill’s broad wording had the potential to pose issues for foreign-owned companies like Kia and Hyundai, which both have manufacturing plants in Georgia.

Anavitarte’s bill now heads back to the Senate for another vote. The session is set to end April 2.

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