Another Ethics Charge Filed Against Carolyn Cosby

Another ethics complaint has been filed with the local resident who is seeking to gain enough signatures to be placed on the Nov. 4 general election ballot to challenge incumbent County Commission Chair Buzz Ahrens.

Canton resident Garrett Jamieson has filed two complaints with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, formerly the ethics commission, alleging Carolyn Cosby has failed to register with the state agency two organizations she's created for political purposes. 

In his complaints, dated June 30, 2014, Jamieson accuses Cosby of not registering Canton T.E.A. Party and Georgians For Healthcare Freedom Ltd. as an independent committee, a political action committee or ballot committee.

Cosby's Georgians For Healthcare Freedom organization has been working to collect enough signatures to force the Georgia General Assembly to pass legislation that would ask voters whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act — known as Obamacare — should be nullified. 

"Because she has not registered the group, she has not filed any reports," Jamieson writes. "So there is no way for the public to know how much money she has raised, what expenses the group has paid for or if she has co-mingled funds given to one group that she could have used to support the mission for her other group." 

With the T.E.A. Party organization, Jamieson writes Cosby, who was the head of the organization until she stepped down last month to launch her quest to get on the Nov. 4 general election ballot, was collecting funds for membership and during monthly meetings. Money has also been spent on fliers, the group's website, homemade signs and robocalls, Jamieson notes. 

Cosby has not responded to Patch's request for comment on the latest allegations. 

Before coming to Cherokee County, Cosby, 62, was widely known for her anti-marriage equality campaigns in the state of Maine during the late 80s and early to mid 1990s. 

In 2012, she and her organization launched campaigns and backed candidates to unseat incumbent District 2 County Commission Jim Hubbard. The material Cosby circulated eventually was used as evidence against her in an ethic complaint filed with the ethics commission. 

Cosby was accused by former County Commissioner Karen Bosch of raising money to influence voters on which candidates to support in the July 31 primary. 

The case was eventually turned over to the Georgia Attorney General's Office for "probable case" where it remains undecided. 

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