Nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams admits to secretly helping her 2018 campaign

A nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat, admitted Wednesday that it violated state law by concealing that it had campaigned for her during her 2018 run for governor.

At the time of that campaign, the group was led by Raphael Warnock, who was later elected to the Senate as a Democrat from Georgia.

At a meeting of the state ethics commission, the nonprofit New Georgia Project admitted it had paid for fliers and door-to-door canvassers telling voters to support Ms. Abrams and other Democrats.

Under federal law, tax-exempt charities like this are prohibited from campaigning for candidates, but this case involved a violation of state law.

The nonprofit admitted that because of its campaign work for Ms. Abrams, it should have registered with the state as a political committee, but it did not. A related nonprofit, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, admitted as much.

As a result, the two nonprofits agreed to pay a $300,000 fine. David Emadi, the executive director of the commission, said it was the largest fine in its 38-year history.

The admissions will settle a six-year battle between the nonprofits and the state Ethics Commission, which first charged Ms. Abrams’ group with wrongdoing in 2019.

“They now admit that everything we said was true,” said Mr. Emadi in an interview this week. He said the nonprofits had asked to pay the fine in two installments of $150,000, one now and one in a year.

Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the decision. They praised the work of committee staff and the attorney general in pursuing the case over five years in the face of what they described as the nonprofits’ refusal to cooperate.

A spokesman for Ms Abrams said in a statement that “Stacey has not been involved in the work of the organization since she left in 2017.” Mr. Warnock’s Senate staff issued a statement saying that while he was the head of the New Georgia Project in 2018, “compliance decisions were not part of that work.”

During Wednesday’s Ethics Commission meeting, David Fox, an attorney for the nonprofits, said they were “anxious to put the matter behind them.”

“At a fundamental level, my clients understand and respect the commission’s decision on the facts of the law,” said Mr. Fox, appearing via video link, “and we believe this is a fair resolution of this long-standing dispute.”

The Ethics Commission’s charges were directed at the nonprofits. It did not seek to punish Ms. Abrams or Mr. Warnock in person.

Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2013 when she was the minority leader in the state’s House of Representatives. She later relinquished her formal role at the nonprofit but remained close to its leaders. Mr. Warnock led the group until he began his Senate campaign in 2020.

The group was credited with conducting mass voter registration drives that helped turn Georgia blue in 2020 — driving President Biden, Sen. Jon Ossoff and Mr. Warnock to surprise wins in a long-red state.

Under federal tax law, a tax-exempt charity can register voters but not tell them who to vote for. In 2018, however, the New Georgia Project did just that, the state ethics commission said.

The commission said the nonprofit paid for fliers endorsing Ms. Abrams, and for canvassers who were told to say, “She’s the leader we trust, will fight for us under the gold dome” of the Georgia State Capitol.

Some of the caseworkers were nominally paid by the related nonprofit, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, which has more legal leeway to campaign. But Mr. Emadi said there was actually little difference between the groups. Bank records showed the New Georgia Project was in charge of it all.

In total, the two nonprofits acknowledged that they should have disclosed $3.2 million in expenses.

Mr. Emadi called the nonprofits’ spending “the largest amount we’ve ever caught a group dumping to illegally influence our election.”

Georgia’s ethics commission includes four Republicans and one Democrat. In 2022, the commission voted unanimously that there was probable cause that the nonprofit had violated the law, a vote that allowed the investigation to continue.

The New Georgia Project’s admissions raised questions about whether it had also violated the provision of federal tax law that prohibits tax-exempt charities from endorsing candidates. The Internal Revenue Service, which enforces that rule, declined to comment.

Aishwarya Kavi contributed with reporting.