An attempt to state that Georgia’s appointed State Election Board has the legal power to investigate Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s handling of elections blossomed into a constitutional showdown Tuesday, with a lawyer for Raffensperger saying board members can’t legally oversee him.
“There is no precedent for an unelected board of political appointees to have oversight over members of the executive branch,” wrote Charlene McGowan, Raffensperger’s general counsel. “Giving a board of unelected bureaucrats unchecked power over the state’s executive branch is a dangerous policy proposal.”
But the Senate Ethics Committee disagreed, voting to advance Senate Bill 358. The proposal would remove Raffensperger from his nonvoting post on the board, allow the board to hire election investigators instead of solely relying on those working for Raffensperger and clearly give the board power to investigate the secretary of state.
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