Ex-speaker settles 5-year-old ethics complaint

Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered reports that former state House speaker Terry Coleman, often mentioned as a 2010 candidate for agriculture, has “tentatively settled” a long-standing ethics complaint arising the use of campaign cash for condo payments:

Beginning in 1997, Coleman made monthly payments from campaign funds on a downtown condominium purchased by Nameloc Corp., a company he controls. Nameloc reimbursed the campaign for $38,120 in 2002, after the payments had been disclosed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and shortly before Coleman sought and won the speaker’s post.

At the time, a number of legislators had been using campaign money to make mortgage, rental or maintenance payments on housing in the Atlanta area. The State Ethics Commission ruled in 2004 that legislators — who then collected about $128 per day in state funds for expenses while on state business — should use that money for lodging, not campaign cash.

The amount of the settlement is about $2,900, Unfiltered says.

For instant updates, follow me on Twitter.