Today’s special election to replace long-serving House Rep. Ben Harbin in Augusta’s HD 122 has without a doubt been the most intriguing of the several races going on around the state, with recent rainstorms the perfect backdrop for what has been a fierce round of mud-slinging between the two leading candidates.
The drama began earlier in October when a supporter of Joe Mullins, the fundraising leader in the race, filed a formal ethics complaint against rival Mack Taylor for filing a false financial disclosure. The complaint claims that Mullins failed to report costs associated with a private investigation into Mullins’ residency qualifications, the details of which were spread to local media and used to damage the Mullins campaign. According to Taylor’s camp the investigation was entirely paid for by an individual unassociated with his campaign and no money changed hands in acquiring the information.
The report turned up by the private investigation itself states that in 2013 Mullins claimed Florida as his place of residence to pay lower fees at a local country club and received a drivers license in the Sunshine State. That could have made him ineligible to even run for office in Georgia, and depending on the timing involved may have actually been a crime. After initially denying that the documents were accurate, Mullins later admitted to have being ‘untruthful’ about the incident.
Taylor has said that he declined to use any of the information provided to him in any campaign literature, but according to the Mullins camp the story circulating in the media is damage done to their chances, and the value added to the Taylor campaign should have been reported.
That’s not all though. Yesterday the story broke that Austin Rhodes, a popular Augusta-based talk show radio host, had filed a restraining order against Mullins and two of his supporters, barring them from continuing to make statements on social media that Rhodes had taken money from Mack Taylor to blast the Mullins campaign on air. The restraining order was fiercely debated in court Monday by lawyers representing both Rhodes and Mullins, but with no proof that Taylor had paid Rhodes, the end result was that the order was kept in place.
Harbin, who left office to take a job with regional lobbying firm Southern Strategy Group, surely must be glad not to be caught up in this mess. Likewise HD 122 voters must be equally glad that the drama-fueled contest is coming to an end.
It deserves mentioning that there are two additional candidates in today’s election, realtor Pat Goodwin and rehab-center owner Jodi Lott, both of whom have stayed above the fray in hopes that Augusta area voters will tire of what has been a particularly violent round of mud slinging. By midnight tonight we’ll find out if they were right.
