Illustration by Nazario Graziano for POLITICO / Getty Images
ATLANTA — The voting rights enactment founded by Stacey Abrams spent much than $25 cardinal implicit 2 years connected ineligible fees, mostly connected a azygous case, with the largest magnitude going to the self-described boutique instrumentality steadfast of the candidate’s run chairwoman.
Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’ adjacent person who chaired her gubernatorial run some successful 2018 and her existent bid to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, is 1 of 2 named partners successful Lawrence & Bundy, a tiny steadfast of less than 2 twelve attorneys.
The steadfast received $9.4 cardinal from Abrams’ group, Fair Fight Action, successful 2019 and 2020, the past years for which national taxation filings are available. Lawrence-Hardy declined to remark connected however overmuch her steadfast has collected from Fair Fight Action successful 2021 and 2022 — years successful which Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, for which Lawrence-Hardy was pb counsel, had astir of its courtroom activity.
Fair Fight Action has maintained that the suit — which ended past period erstwhile a national justice ruled against the radical connected each 3 remaining claims — served an important relation successful drafting attraction to voting inequities. But immoderate extracurricular the radical questioned some the level of expenditures devoted to a single, mostly unsuccessful ineligible enactment and the information that specified a ample payout went to the steadfast of Abrams’ adjacent person and run chair. Those concerns were heightened by the information that Abrams’ nationalist run against elector suppression galvanized the Democratic Party, galore of whose apical donors helped capable its coffers.
Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger began arsenic a sweeping ineligible onslaught connected voting issues ranging from agelong lines astatine polling places to problems with elector registration to mediocre grooming of canvass workers. The scope of the lawsuit was subsequently narrowed importantly by Federal District Court Judge Steve C. Jones. On Sept. 30, aft a seat trial, Jones issued his last bid and judgment, ruling against Fair Fight Action.
“Although Georgia’s predetermination strategy is not perfect,” Jones wrote, “the challenged practices interruption neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Act].”
The case, and the enactment that spawned it, was astatine the cutting borderline of Abrams’ nationwide thrust to grow elector access, a origin that made her a rising prima among liberals and an alleged unfortunate of GOP efforts to bounds participation, particularly among minorities. Abrams, a Democrat, created Fair Fight Action soon aft her nonaccomplishment to Kemp, a Republican, successful the 2018 gubernatorial race, by a constrictive borderline of 50.2 to 48.8. Afterward, she claimed that thousands of voters, a disproportionate fig of whom were radical of color, were efficaciously disenfranchised by overly restrictive voting rules. Within days of her loss, she committed herself to a monolithic effort to exposure elector suppression, galvanizing galore Democratic donors and activists.
“This year, much than 200 years into Georgia’s antiauthoritarian experiment, the authorities failed its voters,” Abrams told supporters 10 days aft the 2018 election. “You see, contempt a record-high colonisation successful Georgia, much than a cardinal citizens recovered their names stripped from the rolls by the caput of state, including a 92-year-old civilian rights activistic who had formed her ballot successful the aforesaid vicinity since 1968. Tens of thousands hung successful limbo, rejected owed to quality mistake and a strategy of suppression that had already proven its bias.”
Lawrence-Hardy was astatine the forefront of Abrams’ effort to combat suppression from the start, according to Abrams aides.
Over the coming months, contributions poured in, making Fair Fight Action 1 of the astir heavy funded groups moving to guarantee ballot entree for each eligible voters. In 2019 and 2020, Fair Fight Action raised much than $61 cardinal — much than treble the magnitude of immoderate different akin entity operating successful Georgia. Since then, Fair Fight Action has spent astatine slightest a 3rd of that fundraising haul connected Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger. An further $20 cardinal was near successful reserves, according to the latest taxation filings.
The level of ineligible expenditures dwarfs those of different voting rights cases brought successful national court, accidental voting rights experts. By comparison, the authorities of Georgia devoted astir $6 cardinal to support the caput of state’s bureau successful the Raffensperger case, according to the lawyer general’s office.
“The emblematic lawsuit is simply a mates of 100 1000 dollars and tin instrumentality a mates of years,” said Leah Aden, lawman manager for litigation astatine the Legal Defense Fund, which advocates for civilian rights and radical justice. She cited a lawsuit successful Texas successful which 5 plaintiffs sought astir $8.8 cardinal successful ineligible fees aft the verdict arsenic the astir costly she had seen. “Beyond $10 cardinal would beryllium precise shocking, I would say.”
Of the 8 antithetic instrumentality firms moving connected the Fair Fight Action case, Lawrence-Hardy’s steadfast served arsenic pb counsel and collected the astir fees.
“We bash supply different services for Fair Fight Action,” Lawrence-Hardy said successful a POLITICO interview, declining to elaborate further connected the fees. “We person respective matters for them.”
Lawrence-Hardy was a classmate of Abrams astatine Spelman College successful Georgia successful the aboriginal 1990s. The brace would besides each be Yale Law School, with Abrams graduating successful 1999, 3 years aft Lawrence-Hardy.
“We archetypal became bully friends erstwhile I was an associate, and she was a summertime subordinate astatine [the Atlanta-based instrumentality steadfast of] Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan. And we some worked with the aforesaid partner,” Lawrence-Hardy said. “We became precise bully friends there.”
That partner, Lawrence-Hardy said, was the archetypal idiosyncratic to promote Abrams to tally for governor. “At immoderate rate, I happened to beryllium sitting astatine the array astatine the clip erstwhile they were having that speech and I got myself a beingness job. So I’ve been moving Stacey’s campaigns ever since.” (Campaign chairs are typically volunteers that assistance with fundraising and strategy alternatively than day-to-day operations of the campaign.)
But immoderate morals watchdogs accidental the closeness of their relationship, combined with Lawrence-Hardy’s starring roles successful Abrams’ campaigns, raises questions astir a imaginable struggle of interest. The litigation that Lawrence-Hardy helped motorboat connected behalf of Fair Fight Action brought important fees to her steadfast portion perchance giving Abrams a public-relations triumph and vindicating her criticisms of Georgia’s voting system.
“It is simply a precise wide struggle of involvement due to the fact that with that benignant of adjacent nexus to the litigation and her person that provides an accidental wherever the person gets peculiarly enriched from this litigation,” said Craig Holman, an adept connected run concern and morals astatine Public Citizen, a non-partisan user advocacy organization, offering his sentiment aft POLITICO briefed Holman on the contents of Fair Fight Action’s 990 forms. “The result of that litigation tin straight impact her run itself.”
Through her campaign, Abrams declined to beryllium interviewed. But the run disputed the thought that the litigation helped her candidacy, insisting the extremity was to make a just process, not bring astir a definite result.
“What is the boon to the campaign?” said Nina Smith, a elder advisor to the Abrams campaign. “We cull that premise. Ideally the remedies sought successful this lawsuit would presently beryllium successful spot and voters successful Georgia would not person their authorities moving against their close to vote. That benefits democracy.”
Fair Fight Action’s taxation filings bash not amusement an nonstop breakdown of what these extracurricular ineligible fees were spent on, and the non-profit radical is not required to supply that breakdown. But Fair Fight Action’s erstwhile organizing director, Hillary Holley, told POLITICO that the extracurricular ineligible fees enactment point showed the outgo of litigating 2 cases filed by Fair Fight Action: Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger and a lawsuit brought aft the 2020 wide predetermination against True the Vote, an enactment that has made uncorroborated claims of predetermination fraud, filed successful mid-November, 2020. The True the Vote lawsuit would lone correspond 2 months of billings successful the national filings.
Neither Lawrence-Hardy nor Fair Fight Action provided a breakdown of its billings for the Raffensperger lawsuit compared to different work. Fair Fight Action besides did not respond to a petition for a breakdown of its ineligible fees successful 2021 and truthful acold successful 2022, the twelvemonth that the Raffensperger case came to trial. (Federal filings for 2021 volition go public, connected request, by November astatine the earliest.)
Xakota Espinoza, communications manager for Fair Fight Action, said Lawrence-Hardy was hired for her expertise, not her narration with Abrams.
“Fair Fight Action on with 5 different organizations had the grant of being represented by Allegra Lawrence-Hardy successful her relation arsenic pb counsel for the plaintiffs, arsenic good arsenic by a fig of esteemed lawyers astatine Lawrence & Bundy and the 7 different firms progressive successful this case,” said Espinoza.
According to its website, Lawrence-Hardy’s steadfast represents “large companies, authorities entities, and high-profile individuals successful analyzable employment and analyzable litigation cases crossed the country.” Lawrence-Hardy, herself, has acquisition successful predetermination law, moving connected Democratic causes specified arsenic the recount squad for former-Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms successful 2017 and Joe Biden’s run successful 2020 and connected Al Gore’s 2000 predetermination recount team, she said. Lawrence-Hardy successfully represented the Georgia Democratic Party successful petition for an hold for voters successful Dougherty County to taxable absentee ballots aft a hurricane prevented the region from gathering deadlines for ballot distribution.
Kathleen Clark, a prof of ineligible morals astatine Washington University successful St. Louis, flagged Fair Fight Action’s work to beryllium transparent astir however the organization’s wealth is spent.
“Fair Fight Action ought to explicate wherefore this suit outgo truthful much,” she said. “I deliberation determination are important questions astir this prime of steadfast and conscionable wherefore this suit was truthful overmuch much expensive. And determination whitethorn beryllium perfectly valid, guiltless explanations to some of those questions. But I don’t cognize what they are.”
“It is indispensable that non-government organizations, that charitable organizations beryllium tally truthful they really further their stated purposes,” Clark added. “It’s important that we person assurances that it is pursuing its stated goals, alternatively than feathering someone’s nest.”
Norm Eisen, who served arsenic a White House morals advisor nether past President Barack Obama, who was asked by Fair Fight Action to interaction POLITICO to remark connected this story, said helium did not spot thing untoward astir Abrams’ enactment hiring her person and run chair.
“It happens each the time. It is the mode our strategy is built, that the governmental leaders and the argumentation leaders are 1 successful the same. So this is not unsocial to Allegra. You tin accidental the aforesaid happening astir Joe Biden oregon Nancy Pelosi or, oregon Chuck Schumer oregon Mitch McConnell oregon Kevin McCarthy,” Eisen said. “We not lone countenance it, we clasp it; that is the American political, ineligible and ethical system.”
‘I cannot concede’
The lawsuit stems from Abrams’ 2018 nonaccomplishment for Georgia politician to then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp by astir 55,000 votes. Even earlier the votes were counted, the contention was noteworthy for 2 reasons: Kemp’s presumption arsenic caput of state, which meant helium was efficaciously overseeing an predetermination successful which helium was a candidate; and Abrams’ presumption arsenic a Black pistillate astatine the vanguard of a wide breakthrough successful a authorities of the Deep South.
Abrams’ decision followed persistent complaints astir deficiency of entree to voting, peculiarly among Black voters. Abrams didn’t congratulate Kemp aft his constrictive victory. Instead, she complained that the electoral strategy was flawed.
“So, to beryllium clear, this is not a code of concession,” Abrams said, 10 days aft Election Day successful 2018. “Concession means to admit an enactment is right, existent oregon proper. As a pistillate of conscience and faith, I cannot concede.”
Prior to Election Day successful 2018, there were issues with tens of thousands of voters being placed successful pending presumption connected the elector rolls, and problems successful past predetermination cycles with the authorities simply not processing caller elector registration applications, according to Nsé Ufot, CEO of the Abrams-founded New Georgia Project that filed litigation to effort to remedy the issue, yet failing successful court, successful a lawsuit unrelated to Raffensperger.
Then connected Nov. 6, 2018, viral videos dispersed connected societal media of the hours-long lines and radical voting good past the authoritative closing clip successful predominantly Black areas, caused by mediocre assets allocation successful operation with precocious turnout. Fair Fight Action collected accounts of voting problems done a blistery enactment and astatine stops connected a statewide circuit Abrams headlined aft Election Day.
“In the adjacent 10 days [after the Nov. 2018 election], we received much than 50,000 telephone calls from radical who faced elector suppression,” Abrams would later accidental astatine the 2019 Women successful the World Summit. “If 50,000 radical called, that means 50,000 further radical didn’t cognize they could call, and different 50,000 radical conscionable thought it was their fault. So determination were a batch of folks who were disenfranchised.”
Lawrence-Hardy was intimately progressive successful processing the complaints successful the days aft the election. Dara Lindenbaum, who was wide counsel for Abrams’ 2018 run and aboriginal Fair Fight Action, said Lawrence-Hardy would person been a wide prime to pb a situation to alleged voting irregularities adjacent if she hadn’t been progressive successful Abrams’ campaign.
“Given her stature arsenic 1 of the astir respected lawyers successful Georgia, her heavy predetermination instrumentality experience, including her cognition of some national and Georgia predetermination law, Allegra was the evident prime and champion idiosyncratic to pb the Fair Fight Action case,” Lindenbaum said successful a statement.
“If she hadn’t already been there, Allegra was the idiosyncratic we would person called to pb the squad during the captious 10 days post-election successful 2018,” Lindenbaum continued, adding, “Allegra besides had the stature required to bring successful lawyers from crossed Georgia and nationalist instrumentality firms to make a formidable ineligible squad with the taste competency to speech with voters and cod thousands of declarations, portion zealously prosecuting the lawsuit successful national court.”
Pressing the case
On its website, Fair Fight Action portrayed its lawsuit arsenic a landmark situation to mass voter suppression.
“During the 2018 and consequent elections, and gathering connected a agelong past of suppressing the close to vote, the Secretary of State and the Georgia State Election Board oversaw an elections strategy that we contend violated the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the radical said successful the summary connected its website.
The archetypal ailment successful December 2018 was filed by Fair Fight Action on with Care In Action, the non-profit limb of the Domestic Workers Alliance, which was tally by then-state Sen. Nikema Williams, who was aboriginal appointed to Democratic Rep. John Lewis’ spot successful Congress aft helium died successful bureau successful 2020.
In 2019, the 2 groups recruited 4 Black churches to articulation arsenic co-plaintiffs, including Ebenezer Baptist Church, headed by Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who was deposed for the case.
Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger started arsenic a sprawling lawsuit that included allegations of unreasonably agelong lines and hold times caused by moving and closing polling places; the interaction of elector ID rules connected radical of color, voters with non-Anglo Saxon names and recently naturalized citizens; improper attraction of Georgia’s elector rolls; inadequate grooming of canvass workers; and adjacent the integrity of voting machines.
The archetypal ailment included allegations that voting machines were susceptible to hacking and were switching votes intended for Abrams into votes for Kemp. Fair Fight Action recovered 2 voters who said they had to prime the fastener to ballot for Abrams 4 times earlier the machine’s surface showed a ballot for Abrams alternatively of Kemp. Fair Fight Action removed this allegation successful December 2020 successful a revised complaint, astatine the aforesaid infinitesimal past President Donald Trump was making akin unfounded allegations successful his effort to overturn the statesmanlike predetermination results successful Georgia.
More than 2 years aft the lawsuit was filed, Judge Steve Jones narrowed its scope to 3 issues: nonstop matching of elector accusation for radical who didn’t registry done the Department of Driver Services and were recently naturalized citizens; accuracy of the elector rolls and whether the elector lists connected Election Day included each eligible voters; and a nonaccomplishment to decently bid region officials, who bid canvass workers, to assistance voters who wanted to cancel their absentee ballots and ballot successful idiosyncratic instead.
“I telephone it the unthinkable shrinking lawsuit,” said Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, implicit the summer. “It started disconnected with allegations of tens of thousands of votes that were suppressed crossed the authorities of Georgia successful the 2018 Election. We’re down to 7 individuals who didn’t vote.”
“That is not what they brought. That’s not what their property conferences person been about. That’s not what their fundraising emails person been about,” Carr said of the lawsuit’s last scope. “It was astir a watershed landmark elector suppression case. That’s what they took to the American people, not conscionable Georgians, they made this a nationalist campaign. We virtually went from 20-some claims to three, and 3 that don’t spell to the bosom of affirmatively prohibiting Georgians from voting.”
Lawrence-Hardy pushed backmost connected accusations the suit did not person impact. In the pre-trial signifier of the case, she said, the authorities reinstated 22,000 voters that it was readying to region due to the fact that they had not voted successful caller elections, nether the alleged “use it oregon suffer it” rule. The authorities besides agreed to commencement utilizing a national database called SAVE to verify the citizenship of caller voters arsenic opposed to a statewide database.
“I privation each of our claims had made it to trial, but this is modern litigation. It is their M.O. to effort to disregard each oregon parts of cases,” Lawrence-Hardy said of the state’s defence team.
But adjacent arsenic the scope of the claims narrowed, Fair Fight Action’s ineligible squad grew.
In summation to Lawrence & Bundy, Fair Fight Action paid $8.6 cardinal for ineligible services from Jenner & Block, headquartered successful Chicago; and Miller & Chevalier Chartered and KaiserDillon, some based successful Washington, D.C., for $2.4 cardinal and $1.6 million, respectively, according to the 2019 and 2020 taxation filings from Fair Fight Action.
Campaign Legal Center, an enactment with much acquisition handling voting rights cases, was added to the ineligible squad successful precocious 2019. It is not known if CLC has been paid for its enactment due to the fact that it is not among Fair Fight Action’s apical 5 vendors, which are required to beryllium disclosed. The aforesaid constricted disclosure applies to the enactment of the firms Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, Kastorf Law and DuBose Miller, which are listed connected tribunal documents but not connected Fair Fight Action’s taxation filings.
Fair Fight’s PAC, known officially arsenic Fair Fight, Inc, has travel nether scrutiny successful caller weeks. It precocious launched an interior probe aft Fox News revealed that Abrams’ longtime adjutant and the manager of the PAC, Andre Fields, paid retired tens of thousands of dollars to his sister and a person for consulting services erstwhile neither has a inheritance successful politics.
“On October 13, Fair Fight PAC became alert that PAC funds whitethorn person been incorrectly paid to consultants,” a connection from Fair Fight PAC said. “Our archetypal precedence is to signifier corporate efforts to amended voters, which we volition not suffer show of passim this interior investigation.”
Fair Fight Action’s caller enforcement manager Cianti Stewart-Reid declined to disclose the group’s donors. But POLITICO was capable to place donations from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, some ample and well-funded wide organizations, based connected interviews and a reappraisal of different 990 forms.
Open Society’s co-director for U.S. grants, Laleh Ispahani, said she was impressed with however “cutting-edge” Fair Fight Action was. “I was ever informed astir the enactment and I deliberation astir of their donors astir apt would accidental the aforesaid thing,” Ispahani said.
But erstwhile asked astir the wealth spent connected extracurricular ineligible fees and its 2018 case, Ispahani said, “I was not alert of that. I volition archer you I didn’t cognize astir what they spent connected it, oregon adjacent however they money that, rather honestly. So I conscionable I don’t person a batch to archer you.”
The Sixteen Thirty Fund declined to remark connected its assistance to Fair Fight Action.
Going to trial
The case, delayed by Covid, yet came to proceedings successful the spring. Over the people of 21 days of grounds betwixt April and June of this year, Fair Fight Action called 50 witnesses, including 25 voters of which 7 could not formed a ballot successful the 2016 and 2018 elections.
Prior to trial, Fair Fight Action had collected much than 3,300 elector declarations and included 350 of those stories successful the pre-trial find information of the case. Lawrence-Hardy said aft closing arguments that it was a constituent of pridefulness for her and her squad to beryllium capable to papers truthful galore voters’ experiences.
One witnesser was a Fulton County elector named Andre Smith, who was repeatedly flagged arsenic a felon and removed from the elector strategy due to the fact that of a mendacious lucifer with a antithetic Andre Smith. The defence acknowledged the problem, but said the determination to region Smith was made astatine the Fulton County level, and truthful not the responsibility of the caput of state’s office.
The authorities maintained that portion Georgia’s predetermination strategy is not perfect, it is neither systemically flawed nor intentionally discriminatory.
Josh Belinfante, the pb lawyer for the state, argued that portion idiosyncratic voters mightiness person had issues voting determination is not a load connected the close to ballot itself, which is the ineligible modular successful specified cases. (Belinfante’s steadfast has besides represented the Georgia Republican Party, including successful an unsuccessful suit challenging absentee ballots successful Chatham County successful the 2020 statesmanlike election.)
On the stand, Belinfante questioned Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ 2018 run manager who besides served arsenic manager of Fair Fight Action, connected wherefore the enactment had challenged predetermination procedures successful 2018 but called the 2020 predetermination “free and fair” — a constituent amplified by Judge Jones successful a question from the bench.
“But present is what Mr. Belinfante is trying to works successful the court’s mind. 2018, you didn’t prevail. 2020, arsenic you said, the predetermination results were much to your liking,” Jones said. “When you lost, it wasn’t a escaped election, but erstwhile you won, it was a escaped election. Should I instrumentality the interpretation?”
Groh-Wargo responded she felt accountable to the radical the Abrams run encouraged to ballot successful 2018.
“The quality was [that] 2018 was the archetypal clip the Democrats had travel truthful adjacent successful a agelong clip successful the discourse of these lines and these issues. So arsenic the person of the organization, I directed my unit to spell find retired what happened and to cod those stories and to enactment with lawyers to bash that ethically to effort and get to the bottommost of it,” she said.
“I’m not saying we did it perfectly, your honor. We were ever trying to balance, accidental ‘Trust the strategy and vote, it’s portion of our civic and patriotic duty’ … [and] ‘It’s not your imaginativeness that it seems hard to ballot oregon that you person questions,’” Groh-Wargo said.
The value of history
On June 23, Lawrence-Hardy made her closing statement successful beforehand of a half-full courtroom and 3 reporters. She said she felt the value of past — specifically, Georgia’s profoundly troubled radical past and elector suppression of Black people.
“Defendants, of course, reason that adjacent though it is the Secretary of State that tees up the matches connected the counties’ dashboards, the Secretary of State cannot beryllium liable for what happens next, due to the fact that it is the counties’ mistakes that yet pb to voters being canceled,” she argued successful court. “This effort to displacement the blasted fails.”
Lawrence-Hardy argued that this accepted part of work betwixt authorities and region was the aforesaid reasoning utilized to uphold racist systems of the past. Former Alabama Democratic Gov. George Wallace — a renowned segregationist who held bureau connected and disconnected from the aboriginal 1960s until the precocious 1980s — utilized that excuse with President Lyndon Johnson, Lawrence-Hardy told the court.
“You whitethorn retrieve hearing, ‘Counties tally elections,’ from Gov. Wallace erstwhile President Lyndon Johnson pressed him to registry African American voters successful Alabama [in 1965]. ‘Counties power registration,’ helium argued. ‘My hands are tied,’” Lawrence-Hardy quoted Wallace saying. “So, yes, we acquisition déjà vu erstwhile we perceive defendants’ witnesses deflect work for these harmful policies by echoing the aforesaid excuse.”
On Sept. 30, the justice issued his ruling.
“This is simply a voting rights lawsuit that resulted successful wins and losses for each parties implicit the people of the litigation and culminated successful what is believed to person been the longest voting rights seat proceedings successful the past of the Northern District of Georgia,” wrote Judge Jones successful his 288-page decision.
But regarding the 3 remaining claims that made it to trial, the justice ruled successful favour of the defendants connected each counts.
“Although Georgia’s predetermination strategy is not perfect, the challenged practices interruption neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Act],” Jones wrote. “As the Eleventh Circuit notes, national courts are not ‘the arbiter[s] of disputes’ which originate successful elections; it [is] not the national court’s relation to ‘oversee the administrative details of a section election.’”
Afterwards, Fair Fight Action expressed disappointment but emphasized that overmuch had been accomplished successful immoderate event.
“The lawsuit revealed a fig of antecedently chartless details astir the fuller scope and interaction Georgia’s profoundly flawed and discriminatory practices,” Espinoza said. “Georgia’s ‘exact match’ strategy has a 60 percent mistake rate. Additionally, Georgians of colour are 10 times much apt to person their elector registration flagged due to the fact that their applications did not precisely lucifer the DDS oregon SSA databases. As of Jan. 2020, astir 70 percent of the 60,000 Georgia voters flagged are Black.”
Keeping her distance
Abrams resigned arsenic seat of the committee of Fair Fight Action conscionable earlier she announced her 2nd tally for politician successful December 2021, but her run team’s astir caller fiscal disclosures amusement an in-kind donation, estimated astatine $542,000 worthy of Fair Fight unit time, and a $1.5 cardinal donation from Fair Fight Inc. to Abrams’ enactment PAC.
Even though Abrams started this case, fundraised for it and was seat of the committee that filed it, she stayed distant from the trial. She didn’t travel to the courthouse. She hasn’t tweeted astir it since the proceedings started. In fact, she hasn’t tweeted the words “Fair Fight” erstwhile this year. Even successful a short tweet thread astir the verdict, Abrams did not notation the enactment she founded by name.
“She said it to staffers, she said it to donors: Now we request to person the voters voices heard. This is for them. It’s the voters’ voices. And truthful they’ve been astatine the halfway of this litigation from the time it was filed,” Lawrence-Hardy said.
“Yes, obviously, we would not person had the resources without a Stacey Abrams amplifying those voters’ voices,” Lawrence-Hardy added. “But from the beginning, we could person filed the suit connected behalf of Stacey. That, you know, immoderate radical bash that, right? Some candidates bash that. But this was ever astir the voters and the radical who enactment successful the grassroots organizations to enactment the voters. And that’s wherefore it was styled the mode it was styled.”
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