SUMMER 2006 NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS
GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

‘Anyone filing a complaint before the Georgia Senate Ethics Committee is permitted to talk’

In a U.S. District Court settlement, the committee concedes it lacks power to gag you and suspend your First Amendment freedom of speech

By Tom Bennett

Lilburn, Ga., June 23, 2006 -- Each Georgia freedom of speech issue seems as clear as the nose on your face, and yet many must be won in court.

Gerry Weber, Legal Director of ACLU of Georgia, and the lawyer for the Georgia Senate Ethics Committee reached a stipulation in March. The result is one of those explainer sentences that makes you do a double-take. Here it is: This opens up speech by persons who have filed ethics complaints before this committee of the Georgia Senate. They can file the complaint, and then after that their lips aren’t sealed.

"Anyone filing a complaint before the Georgia Senate Ethics Committee is permitted to talk," Weber said. "We reached a stipulation and a dismissal. It’s a good settlement."

It certainly is, for everyone who has found themselves gagged during the past two years under a draconian 2005 rule adopted by the Senate committee.

"The Senate Ethics Committee has a perpetual gag on free speech that prevents citizens from speaking out about a failure by the legislature to pursue ethics violations," Weber wrote in his complaint in federal court.

Even for a southern state still finding its way out of the dark past, this was a harsh assertion of supposed rights to suspend the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Under the rule, any complaint about unethical behavior by a Georgia senator was to remain confidential.  Were the committee to absolve the senator behind closed doors, the complaining citizen was to remain silent forever.

Weber filed suit in behalf of Sen. Vincent Fort of Atlanta and George Anderson of Rome, Ga.; who is dismissed by public officials as a "gadfly" but in fact is a sincere and determined advocate for greater freedom of speech and the press in Georgia.

The lawsuit was Fort and Anderson v. Unterman.

Renee W. Unterman of Buford is chair of the Georgia Senate Ethics Committee, according to the 2005-2006 Second Session Picture Book of the General Assembly, which is online at this writing.

Eleven committee members, according to the Picture Book, represent every region of Georgia. So members from around the state were part of an effort five years into the 21st Century to gag citizens’ speech.

The members of Unterman’s committee are Sens. Preston Smith of Rome; Terrell Starr of Jonesboro; Don Balfour of Snellville; Robert Brown of Macon; Jack Hill of Reidsville; Eric Johnson of Savannah; Michael Meyer von Bremen of Albany; Dan Moody of Alpharetta; Kasim Reed of Atlanta; Nancy Schaefer of Turnerville; and Don Thomas of Dalton.

One of the attorneys for the plaintiffs and named in Weber’s brief was C. Allen Garrett Jr. of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP law firm of Atlanta.