Read the Opinion, Not the Press Release

If you’ve followed my Peach Pundit articles over the past two years, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme.

I’ve been spectacularly unhelpful – usually to the point of mocking – to the Georgia Republican Assembly’s (GRA) litigation strategy, because statutes are stubborn things. Courts have this irritating habit of reading them.

Whether it was No Duty, No Writ, No Case, Writ It Down, Georgia Supreme Court Hands Catoosa GOP Another Loss, or any number of other articles, my criticism has always been the same:

Read the law.

Not the rumor.

Not the Facebook post.

Not the resolution.

Read the law.

So, when the Ethics Commission case came along, many readers naturally expected another Peach Pundit article.

Instead…

Nothing.

…Crickets…

That wasn’t an oversight.

That wasn’t because I had lost a game of rock, paper, scissors (and for Buzz and the other Tech fans reading this…lizard, Spock) with Scot so he could take the lead.

The reason is simple…I was a potential witness.

Come on Mr. Peabody…time to get in the WayBack Machine:

Back in the summer of 2025, I received a heads-up that I was listed as the registered agent for the GRA PAC in connection with the Ethics Commission’s complaint. By the time I contacted the Executive Secretary, David Emadi, to inform him I had relinquished that position in 2021, he informed me that it had already been corrected. During our conversation, however, Mr. Emadi explained the Commission’s legal theory and asked whether I still had any records from my time as a GRA member.

I told him I would review my old emails and provide any non-privileged documents that were responsive to his request. I ultimately located a substantial number of communications, met with Commission staff, and cooperated as a witness. Whether the Commission’s legal theory ultimately prevailed is a separate question. My role was simply to provide truthful information that had been requested, and, if necessary, testify on the evidence that I presented.

As an attorney, I generally think witnesses shouldn’t spend months writing opinion pieces about pending litigation in which they may later testify. Maybe that’s old-fashioned, but I happen to think letting courts decide cases before commentators do is still a pretty good system.

Now the case is over.

Judge Dominic Capraro has ruled.

The GRA won.

Congratulations.

Seriously.

Unlike some people, I don’t measure the legitimacy of a judicial opinion by whether it reaches the result I preferred. Agencies lose cases. Lawyers lose cases. Courts disagree with regulators every day.

That’s how our legal system is supposed to work.

What puzzled me wasn’t the victory; it was the victory lap.

Within hours of the opinion being released, the GRA newsletter announced that the judge had declared the organization “innocent of baseless ethics complaints.”

There’s only one problem.

That’s not what the opinion says.

The judge never called the complaint “frivolous”.

He never accused the Ethics Commission of “political persecution”.

He never criticized the investigators.

He never found bad faith.

He never found a conspiracy.

He never suggested the investigation itself was improper.

Instead, he answered a relatively narrow legal question.

The Commission argued that because the GRA PAC made independent expenditures, it also had to comply with the reporting requirements applicable to independent committees.

Judge Capraro disagreed.

His reasoning was straightforward: Georgia’s statute expressly excludes political action committees from the statutory definition of an independent committee. Therefore, regardless of the expenditures, the reporting requirements applicable to independent committees simply could not apply to a political action committee. That’s the legal question he decided.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

The judge’s decision basically nullifies an Advisory Opinion that the Commission had issued in 2025, stating PACs which acted like Independent Committees must meet the filing requirements for both PACs AND Independent Committees.

The Judge disagreed with the Advisory Opinion and, in our system, that’s how it works.

Lawyers can debate whether that’s the correct interpretation.

However, reasonable people cannot honestly claim the opinion says things it plainly does not.

Ironically, this is exactly the point I’ve been making in article after article.

Read the statute.

Read the rules.

Read the opinion.

Don’t stop reading once you’ve found a sentence that supports your preferred narrative.

One paragraph in the newsletter did catch my attention.

It alleges that I somehow “baited” the Ethics Commission with emails.

Interesting.

The opinion never mentions me.

Not once.

Judge Capraro makes no findings whatsoever about my role, my conduct, or my communications with the Commission. Yet somehow the newsletter confidently informs readers what my motives supposedly were.

That’s quite an accomplishment.

Apparently, we’ve reached the point where political newsletters now contain factual findings the judge forgot to include in his own opinion.

For those keeping score at home, that’s generally not how judicial decisions work.

The irony here is hard to miss.

For the better part of two years, I’ve repeatedly criticized the GRA for asking readers to substitute political passion for legal analysis.

This time, the GRA actually won, and yet the temptation remained exactly the same.

Instead of letting the opinion speak for itself, they immediately began improving upon it.

They didn’t need to.

The opinion was a legitimate legal victory. Those are rare enough for the GRA that they should be celebrated honestly. Judicial opinions don’t need embellishment. They certainly don’t need ghostwriters.

One of the reasons I enjoy writing about election law is that courts are wonderfully indifferent to politics. Judges don’t issue campaign literature…they answer legal questions. Sometimes those answers help your side, sometimes they don’t.

But if we’re going to celebrate judicial opinions when they go our way, we ought to have the intellectual honesty to celebrate the opinion the judge actually wrote, not the one we’d prefer our readers to think he wrote.

That has always been my standard.

It still is.