Georgia Tipsheet

Honoring a pledge he made during the campaign, a recently-elected state lawmaker mailed donors a notice this week that their excess contributions to his fundraising account were being returned.

Michael Caldwell, a 23-year-old Republican from Woodstock, sent contributors checks equivalent to 13.8 percent of their total donation, a level proportionate to surplus funds unused from the campaign.

“I would like to take this opportunity to do something unique for a politician: rather than ask you for money, I’d like to offer it back,” Caldwell wrote in a letter obtained by Tipsheet.

“Most politician keeps contributions from previously election cycles to give themselves an edge in future elections against their competition,” he said. “These financial ‘war chests’ allow politicians to use your donations for future campaigns, even if you are unhappy with the way they performed their job in the previous session. This practice does not hold politicians accountable for their actions.”

Caldwell defeated Rep. Charlice Byrd, a four-term Republican, in the primary and went on to defeat token Democratic opposition by a full 54 percent earlier this month.

The GOP comer had previously challenged Byrd, in 2010, but narrowly lost his inaugural bid. It was in that race that he set the precedent for returning unused campaign donations, he said.

“I’m very proud to keep a campaign promise that I made early on and return my contributors’ unused funds,” he said in a statement to Tipsheet. “It is not my place to decide for them whether or not they will support my 2014 campaign simply because they contributed in 2012. I hope to earn their vote and support again, but I leave that decision to them.”

Caldwell has self-imposed some of the tightest fundraising protocols in the state, refusing to accept any contributions from lobbyists, out-of-state donors, or fellow candidates.

He said these restrictions will keep him accountable and responsive to the concerns his district.

“We’ll continue to campaign solely on funding from Georgia’s citizens and business, and we’ll return ally unused funds after an election cycle,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s a better way to campaign and will keep me accountable term to term.”

- James Richardson

State Rep. Charlice Byrd has tweaked her recorded votes more than other lawmaker in the last six years, her primary rival’s campaign claimed in a 12-page index documenting the practice.

Though it bears no impact on the official margin, an obscure House provision allows lawmakers to change their vote on any legislation after roll calls.

By rival Republican Michael Caldwell‘s count, Byrd has exploited the rule at least 24 times, nearly doubling the legislator who registered second in the measure. (Atlanta Democrat Ralph Long was named first runner-up with 13 vote swaps.)

Caldwell, a twenty-something candidate whose campaign I previously profiled for Fox News, said he first learned of the curious legislative indulgence in 2011 when he and Byrd grappled over the vote margins of a bill green lighting Sunday alcohol sales referendums.

A supporter of the measure, Caldwell circulated on Facebook the roll call vote for the legislation, listing Byrd among the recorded nays. But Byrd fired back that her young critic was mistaken and that she was in fact among the supporting majority.

Not quite, as Caldwell would come to learn.

The Woodstock Republican did vote against the bill, but later directed the House clerk to record a vote in the affirmative.

The margin remained 127-44: no belated course corrections are relative to the success or failure of legislation. They’re merely window dressing.

“If it doesn’t change the tally, how disingenuous is it for any representative to be claiming that he’s changed his vote?” Caldwell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday. “If you can’t change the impact, it’s not a changed vote. In reality, [Bryd] voted no and issued a footnote that says she wishes she’d voted yes.”

Caldwell estimates that roughly one-third of lawmakers have likewise indulged. See if yours is among them:

- James Richardson

Tipsheet editor James Richardson writes in a Tuesday oped for Fox News that twenty-something Georgia legislative hopefuls Trey Kelley and Michael Caldwell have launched a revolt against the old guard:

Competing alongside a candidate crop whose median age is more than twice their own, two Georgia legislative hopefuls are challenging a dogma more pervasive and pernicious than even the entrenchment of the monied political class: the feigned handicap of age, meticulously fashioned by rivals nearing their twilight of power and years. 

For Republican twenty-somethings Michael Caldwell and Trey Kelley, both among the youngest in nation to pursue state legislative seats, the calls to indulge the unyielding throne of incumbency grow louder by the day. …

Wait your turn: it’s the requisite call to acquiesce all young challengers are told. Most assent. These didn’t.

Read the story in its entirety here.