Both the Democrat and Republican seeking to oust Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) are calling foul on a proposal by GOP lawmakers that would prohibit fundraising while the legislature is in session.

State legislators say the measure is fair only given that current officeholders are prohibited from raising money during the legislative session, but Democrat Stacey Abrams and former senator David Perdue, who is challenging Kemp in the GOP primary, say the proposal unfairly targets their campaigns and gives Kemp an unfair advantage.

Abrams’s team notes that the move came shortly after her campaign announced outraising Kemp in December and January. According to her campaign, she raised a total of $9.2 million in December and January, and had $7.2 million on hand. Kemp reported raising $2.5 million during the same period, with a total of $7.4 million between July 2021 and Jan. 31. The governor’s campaign said in a Feb. 1 news release that it had $12.7 million in cash on hand. Perdue, according to media reports, raised $1 million during December and January….

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Georgia’s gubernatorial race will be one of the most-watched in the nation. Kemp narrowly won the governor’s race in 2018 after hard-fought campaign with Abrams, who accused him of engaging in voter suppression after he declined to recuse himself from overseeing the election as secretary of state. The election was marred by numerous irregularities in faulty and too few voting machines in some precincts, tens of thousands of voters having their registrations suspended after early voting had already begun, and an unknown number of mail-in and provisional ballots tossed or not counted because of a lack of uniform standards….

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