Here's an interesting blog post. Dustin Brookshire, a former legislative aide to Jill Chambers, says that enough is enough with Jill Chambers. He's switching his vote to Chris Huttman. This is her former aide. The people that know Jill Chambers the best are not voting for her this year.

You may have heard a little bit about Jill Chambers's Ethics Problems from the television, a newspaper, the mail or even a friend. Here's an explanation with a timeline, some charts and 3rd party links that explains what happened.

Nov 7, 2006: Chambers re-elected

Jill Chambers is re-elected with 59% of the vote, winning by 999 votes.

Dec 31, 2006: Last pre-session disclosure due

Jill Chambers raises $6,238 between Oct 25th and Dec 31st after she wins her re-election and files her final 2006 report on January 7th, 2007. (See first attachment)

Jan 5, 2007: Big fundraiser

Jill Chambers holds a pre-session fundraiser dominated by doctors from Resurgens, a group of affiliated ambulatory surgical centers that favor repeal of Georgia's Certificate of Need law. Here are the contributions:

Notice that Jill Chambers raised $11,500 just on this one day from one group of companies and its employees, more than she raised in total between Oct 25, 2006 and Dec 31, 2006. Why would she wait to have her fundraiser until January 5, 2007? It is because the General Assembly session kicked off less than a week later and this period in between Dec 31 and the start of the session is a ritual fundraising time for legislators to accept large contributions that they will not have to disclose until after the session ends, in this case on the June 30th report which Jill filed on July 5, 2007 (see second attachment).

Feb 1, 2007: Legislation introduced

Jill Chambers introduces HB 263 which would outright repeal Georgia's Certificate of Need requirement. Georgia's Chamber of Commerce is opposed to an outright appeal, here is a letter Chamber President George Israel wrote to state Senators opposing even a partial repeal. And Georgia's hospitals, including Emory University, also oppose any repeal of CON. Emory is part of the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals, and is also one of the biggest employers in the district.

Feb 19, 2007: Mother's illness

So why did Jill Chambers all of a sudden sponsor Certificate of Need repeal? Keep in mind that as of the session, no one knows about Jill's $11,500 in contributions from Resurgens because it isn't disclosed until June 30. Nelson Mullins Gold Dome Report informs us that on Feb 19th, Chambers tells a sad story about her mother's illness. According to Chambers's testimony to a special house committee that was reviewing potential changes to CON:

Rep. Chambers noted that her interest in the issue of Certificate of Need ("CON") generated from the experience that her mother had at a hospital while needing an emergency hysterectomy. Rep. Chambers provided a lot of detail in the poor care and complications which her mother experienced and described the CON process as costly and convoluted. Her Bill's goal is to provide patients choice with their providers. She asked fellow Legislators to put the patients' interests first and help ensure cost, service and access to care. She also questioned why government needed involvement in a business's decision to make an investment in a new program or facility.

Stay tuned. Chambers sad story is soon to disappear when later questioned about why she was doing it. The answer should be clear to anyone reading that Chambers's interest in CON reform springs from the thousands of dollars in campaign cash that she received from for-profit clinics that would benefit from its removal.

Sep 19, 2008: Ethics Complaint

Chambers is hit with a state ethics complaint when constituent Jeremy Alan Tanner notices that something doesn't add up on her reports. (see third attachment) The Dunwoody Crier on Sep 30, 2008 reports about the complaint in an article titled Chambers slapped with state ethics complaint.

Oct 8, 2008: Bizarre confrontation

The latest twist and turn in the saga as the Dunwoody Crier reports on Chambers confronting Tanner about his complaint. Chambers shows up at Tanner's house taking pictures and making some pretty bizarre claims about what could happen to someone that files an ethics complaint, including that they could lose their house and that they could be in serious legal trouble.

Oct 19, 2008: Changes her story

Now Jill Chambers has changed her story about why she sponsored the CON bill. In an interview with Dick Pettys of Insider Advantage, gone is the story about her mother's surgery that she told to the CON committee in the State House. Now Chambers says that she didn't even expect her bill to pass and that it was an issue that she'd been interested in for years.

Chambers says she’d been interested in CON for several years and introduced the bill as a vehicle to provide more options in the debate. “I never thought my bill would pass because it took it further than anything else.”

So the question you've got to ask yourself is: why would Jill Chambers take thousands of dollars in affiliated corporate money, sponsor a bill that would greatly benefit those corporations which is opposed by Emory University, one of the largest employers in District 81, then tell a committee that her mother's illness prompted her interest in the subject, then later retract that story and say she was introducing a bill that she didn't even expect to pass?

Chris Huttman has gained Creative Loafing's endorsement. The AJC is not endorsing this year in legislative races, and CL in 2006 backed Jill Chambers. They echo Huttman's call for a change of leadership, saying:

It also makes sense for the middle-class, aging suburbs that make up the 81st District to elect a candidate from a party that will represent middle-class interests. Huttman fits the bill.

CL also weighs in on Jill Chambers's shameful campaign tactics:

But her behavior at times has been erratic and high-handed. Earlier this month, Huttman — a bright young blogger who’s articulate on the issues — was the subject of a shamefully misleading flier from her campaign. It’s the kind of nasty politicking that all voters should be wary of, regardless of their ideology.

Earlier, Creative Loafing authored an authoritative "check the facts" piece on Jill's misleading mailers.

In this mail piece, the campaign discusses Jill Chambers's unimpressive record on property tax increases. We've already talked before about how Jill stood by and did nothing as Republican leaders cut $1.5 billion from education which caused our local school property taxes to rise to make up the difference. Knowing how she's been a team player with the Republicans in these efforts, Jill lacks the credibility to stand against their proposed tax increase for 2009.

Governor Sonny Perdue has already suspended this tax relief for homeowners. Here's how it works: Georgia property tax bills include a state homeowner's tax relief grant, it's called the HRTG on your property tax bill. You already pay state income taxes as well as additional taxes to the state, and the Governor and legislature decided about 10 years ago to give some of that money back in the form of lower local property taxes. They transfer that money to the counties, who then apply it to property tax bills.

The average DeKalb County homeowner receives about $200 in annual relief from this credit. If your house is worth more than $250,000 you end up getting a little more. Remember, you pay these taxes to the state and the deal has been that you get some back. Now Gov. Perdue and the Republicans are facing up to a 10% budget deficit and are looking for quick ways to close it. That's why Perdue thinks this credit is wasteful and wants to take it away from you.

Does Jill Chambers support ending this property tax credit? She'd probably say she doesn't. But here's the thing: Jill Chambers has gone along with her party on disastrous education funding cuts, she's stood with insurers instead of children on Peachcare and she's been a partisan Republican who shows a team mentality at the general assembly, and Perdue is the head of her team. She hasn't stood up to any of their budgetary smoke and mirrors show before, and we can't trust her to do the right thing now. And when it comes to the serious budget deficit in general that we face, we can't trust her to do the right thing on education, healthcare and other critical spending needs, not just our property taxes.

Jill's latest attack mailer is in the form of a "Voter Guide." That's not surprising, Jill's consistently insulted the intelligence of the voters in the 81st district. Here's what you need to know: On local government, both Jill Chambers and Chris Huttman have voted for Vernon Jones in the past, but Jill is the only candidate to solicit funds from Vernon Jones for her own race. Additionally, while Jill Chambers sponsored a referendum to reduce the power of the CEO, it won't take affect until next year when Vernon Jones will no longer be the CEO.

Jill is also claiming that Chris Huttman has some sort of ethics problem because he's been assessed a $25 fine by the commission. This is another case of the pot calling the kettle black, as Jill Chambers has paid not one but two fines for doing the same thing. Misfiling a form is something that most candidates are hit with over the course of their campaigns, search here for yourself and ask yourself why would Jill attack Chris Huttman for doing something that she herself is "guilty" of also. Again, she doesn't respect your intelligence as a voter.

Finally, we've covered her attacks on Chris's experience before and also his web activity. You can read more about it at this link if you care. Jill closes out her mail piece by saying North DeKalb voters should vote for who they trust. Why should you trust a politician like Jill Chambers who doesn't trust your intelligence and repeatedly lies and stretches the truth. Jill has conducted herself in a manner that has caused her to lose not only the endorsement of the Georgia Sierra Club chapter, but also Creative Loafing. Creative Loafing endorsed both candidates running in 2004 and sided with Chambers in 2006.

This year, they've disavowed her campaign tactics and weighed in for Huttman.

I've written some entries that help to check the facts for this piece. One is about Jill's votes on Peachcare, Georgia's S-CHIP program that helps to insure needy children. The other is about her votes on increasing her salary since she's been in the legislature.

• If Jill Chambers had gotten her way, kids would have been kicked off Peachcare

• Jill Chambers voted four times to raise her own pay

If the sun rises in the morning you can be pretty sure that Jill Chambers is about to launch another misleading attack. It's the only currency that a desperate politician like Jill Chambers has left to spend. The latest attack flier accuses Chris Huttman of supporting Vernon Jones for CEO in 2004. That's true, Chris did vote for Vernon in 2004 against an unimpressive crop of challengers. Jill Chambers also attacks Chris for reporting accurate statements about a candidate forum Jones attended.

Look, everyone knows that the problem with Vernon Jones is that he doesn't have the temperament to be in office, not that he isn't qualified. In the Jill Chambers world, if someone says that Vernon Jones has many supporters (which he does) that somehow disqualifies your viewpoint? The most amazing thing about Chambers is her absolute chutzpah (Happy New Years!) in bringing up this attack. As we've documented before on this site, Jill Chambers supported Vernon Jones in 2000 as Chair of the Republican Party. It seems that Vernon was running against County Commission Ken Davis in the Democratic runoff - the same Ken Davis who had delivered a crushing 79-21 electoral defeat against Jill Chambers four years earlier. Chambers got even with Davis by throwing the Republican Party's support behind Jones.

Her history with Jones doesn't stop there. She also took $250 from him. We've documented it all before. As for taking a picture with Al Sharpton that's true also. In 2005 Chris Huttman attended a DNC meeting held in Atlanta that was also attended by Al Sharpton and got his picture made with him. In 2008, what do you think is worse: having your picture taken with Al Sharpton (Chris Huttman) or voting for and supporting George Bush for President twice (Jill Chambers).

I've written some blog entries that back up the claims that our campaign makes about Jill Chambers and the Republican record on education these last six years in Georgia. Check it out below.

• Jill Chambers has supported $1.5 billion in education cuts

• Jill Chambers voted four times to raise her own pay

Well, if it's election time in District 81 then I guess you know that it's time for Jill Chambers to start filling your mailbox with silly, baseless attacks. She's at it again, just like over the weekend with another misleading and false mailer. Again, I'm glad that you're here on this website to get the facts. I've written some blog entries that detail Jill's ridiculous charges and they are linked below.

• Moving Into the District to Run

• Chris Huttman's old blog was political -- and nothing else

You might have gotten this piece in the mail. I guess Jill Chambers is getting an early start on her favorite campaign activity -- resorting to low-blow tactics and peppering her campaign literature with false accusations. I'll be adding fact checks to the negative distortions that Jill Chambers puts out during this campaign as well as the important information that we all need to know about Jill Chambers's record in the General Assembly. Below, please find the first few articles that deal with the distortions and half-truths in this mail piece.

Moving Into the District to Run

Chris Huttman's Employment History

Chris Huttman has mainstream political beliefs

Chris Huttman's blog -- and Jill Chambers's Vernon Jones problem