Following a series of late-2025 media buys from an out-of-state source highlighting Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones’ efforts to pass controversial legislation, a top Jones advisor vowed that the donors to the nonprofit funding the ads “will be made public.” To that end, the Georgia Republican Party filed a complaint in mid-December 2025 urging the State Ethics Commission to force the sponsoring organization to register as an “independent committee” under state campaign finance law and publicly disclose its donors. Making their own contribution to the party’s targeted effort to silence criticism, Jones’ gubernatorial campaign filed an FCC complaint on the first day of 2026 attempting to have the ads removed from the airwaves. These actions set the stage for several contentious debates impacting nonprofits that would follow in the General Assembly’s 2026 legislative session.

Though legislation and taxpayer-funded projects associated with LG Jones were the focus of the ads in question, the state GOP chair viewed the ads as a broader effort to “suppress Republican votes.” The solution? Suppress speech critical of Republicans. Just over two weeks into session, Senate Republicans heeded the call and introduced a bill, S.B. 423, banning candidates, PACs, and “independent committees” from receiving more than 50 percent of their total contributions from “non-Georgia persons.” Combined with the GOP’s regulatory effort to force a nonprofit to register as an independent committee, the introduced version of S.B. 423 was a clear attempt to restrict critics’ fundraising capabilities.

Even without singling out an entire class of U.S. citizens, as the “non-Georgia person” definition in S.B. 423 would, limiting contributions to independent committees is inarguably unconstitutional. This fact, combined with opposition from a coalition of nonprofits active in Georgia, may explain why the House Governmental Affairs Committee opted to remove independent committees from the bill’s reach. In addition to PUFPF, American Federation for Children, Americans for Prosperity, Eternal Vigilance Action, GeorgiaCAN, and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) all expressed concerns about the bill’s blatant unconstitutionality and would-be detrimental impact on their operations in Georgia. Even with the House’s narrowing amendments, the bill almost certainly would not have survived a First Amendment challenge.

Courts across the country have repeatedly rejected similar restrictions on non-resident donors. For example, in 2021, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in Thompson v. Hebdon that “the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decisions leave no room for us to accept the State’s proffered” justifications for limiting out-of-state contributions to Alaska candidates. Even before the recent Supreme Court decisions referenced by the Ninth Circuit, courts recognized the unconstitutionality of such targeted restrictions. In 1999, a federal court in Ohio described a limit on “the percentage of a candidate’s funds that could be raised from contributors outside the Akron city limits” as “so clearly unconstitutional.” As the District Court’s ruling explained, this provision “would have the effect of absolutely prohibiting certain individuals, who might work in the City of Akron but reside elsewhere, from contributing to the candidate of their choice.”

Indeed, many state issues have regional or national implications, and Georgia voters may wish to hear from non-state residents or businesses who will be affected by state policy choices. Those out-of-state residents and business interests may also have a vested interest in the outcome of Georgia political debates. Land use and taxation, energy policy and environmental regulations, and immigration are all examples of policies that have tangible impacts beyond Georgia’s borders. In addition to certain litigation, the result of S.B. 423 would have been less speech and less information for voters. Ultimately, the House tabled the measure, likely because the House committee’s limiting amendments would not have impacted the groups that most motivated Senate Republicans to pass the bill in the first place.

Though it was never seriously considered, a group of five House Republicans and one Democrat introduced their own legislation aimed at deterring engagement by “out-of-state interests” shortly after the introduction of S.B. 423. Their bill, H.B. 1235, would’ve required candidates and independent committees to display a pie chart on their websites, updated monthly, visualizing the percentage of contributions from “non-Georgia persons.” If such contributions exceeded 50 percent, committees would’ve been forced to include within their advertising a disclaimer stating, “This political advertisement was paid for by out-of-state interests.”

Because the state GOP’s complaint attempting to force a nonprofit to register as a political committee is inconsistent with current law, H.B. 1235 would’ve also changed the definition of “independent committee” to encompass many issue-focused nonprofits. As noted by Ethics Commission Executive Director David Emadi, the targeted group’s ads did not encourage Georgians to “vote for” or “vote against” Jones – or even mention that he was running for governor. In order to prevent campaign finance laws from being “impermissibly broad” under the First Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has generally limited the reach of registration and donor disclosure requirements to groups that exist primarily to fund “communications containing express words of advocacy of election or defeat,” such as those mentioned by Emadi. Under H.B. 1235, any organization spending more than $1,000 on speech that merely “refers to” a candidate or ballot question within 120 days of an election would’ve been forced to publicly disclose the names and addresses of their donors.

A Delaware-incorporated nonprofit funding issue ads about the current Lieutenant Governor’s record may have inspired H.B. 1235, but the bill would have caused an array of nonprofits across the ideological spectrum to avoid effective communication about policy issues central to their missions in order to preserve the privacy of their supporters. Thankfully, the misguided and harmful measure died.

While Republican lawmakers were busy crafting legislation to deter unwanted speech through funding restrictions and disclosure requirements, Democrats took a more direct approach. Democratic bills H.B. 1046 and S.B. 600 would have outright banned corporations, including nonprofit corporations, from engaging in any advocacy related to ballot issues or elections. Short-titled the “Corporate Power Reset Act,” this scheme was developed by the progressive Center for American Progress to “use state corporate law authority to stop granting political spending powers” to nonprofits and corporations. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that government may not ban speech based on the corporate identity of the speaker, those pushing Democratic lawmakers to introduce the “Corporate Power Reset” claim, shockingly, that First Amendment precedent is “irrelevant” to their scheme.

Fortunately, both Georgia bills died upon adjournment without a hearing, but it’s become clear this year that this brazen effort to bypass the First Amendment will continue to reappear in states across the country.

Though Georgia Republicans and the Atlanta press were far more interested in unmasking American donors to an American nonprofit alleging self-dealing by LG Jones, House Republicans also took some time to consider a Senate-passed carryover bill from 2025 ostensibly aimed at unmasking “hostile foreign influence” within organizations engaged in broadly defined “political activity.”

S.B. 177 would have required “foreign supported political organizations” (FSPOs) to publicly submit detailed records of donations, expenditures, and regulated activity with the State Ethics Commission. Any advocacy whatsoever related to legislation or regulatory action met the bill’s sweeping definition of “political activity.” If a pro-democracy organization received a single donation of any amount from a Chinese national in the five years prior to, for example, publicly commenting on an agency’s rulemaking, the nonprofit would be slapped with an FSPO label. Nonprofits that speak about policy issues and accept donations from a wide range of contributors would have been at considerable risk of unknowingly triggering detailed registration and disclosure requirements. If a group hadn’t been closely monitoring and verifying the citizenship status of all its donors for the past five years, the only safe option would be to avoid commenting on government action entirely.

Amendments to the bill in the House revealed concerns within the Georgia nonprofit community. Unlike the version that passed the Senate, the House-passed bill explicitly excluded trade associations and membership organizations formed earlier than 1950 from the FSPO definition. While these exemptions would have insulated some nonprofits from the bill’s speech-chilling compliance burdens, many others would still have been impacted. Perhaps realizing the stark consequences, the Senate never acted upon the House-passed bill in the waning days of session.

Another failed, Republican-sponsored proposal aimed at “foreign influence” was H.B. 963, which would have required groups supporting or opposing ballot measures to certify that none of their donors are foreign nationals and that none of their donors have accepted significant funds from foreign nationals in the last four years. To comply with this certification requirement, regulated entities would be required to obtain an affirmation from each donor that the donor is not a foreign national and has not accepted more than $100,000 from foreign nationals in the past four years. While the bill did include some limited donor privacy protections, legislation like H.B. 963 creates obvious opportunities for politically motivated investigations and targeted fishing expeditions.

Even before the latest dustup spurred by the controversial ads calling into question bills championed by Jones, the Peach State has been a hotbed of activity surrounding campaign finance policy in recent years, and the debates surrounding legislation, litigation, and high-profile enforcement actions are unlikely to fade soon. Unfortunately, this heightened attention on campaign finance laws from both parties may foreshadow more harmful proposals aimed at restricting nonprofit civic engagement in the years ahead.

Not all is lost, however. Many lawmakers currently serving in the Georgia General Assembly voted in favor of a significant law protecting the privacy of nonprofit donors just two years ago. Political motivations and heated battles will always cause some politicians to set aside their principles and accept lasting damage to fundamental freedoms as a necessary cost of exacting retribution against critics. For now, it’s worth celebrating that every 2026 Georgia bill PUFPF tracked as a threat to speech and privacy rights failed because enough Georgia legislators took the concerns of nonprofits seriously and chose to defend the health of civil society against their colleagues more interested in short-term political gains.