Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens will be one of five additional speakers at the Republican National Convention later this month in Tampa, Fla., according to an RNC statement issued today.

Olens will join Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Texas Republican Senate Nominee Ted Cruz, Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in voicing support for presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

In a written statement released by the RNC, Olens said: “We can do better as a country. We must empower Americans to make their own choices across the board. The jobs-killing, unconstitutional policies coming out of Washington, D.C., must be undone. Elections do have consequences and we will start to put our country back on track at the Republican National Convention when we nominate Mitt Romney.”

While Olens could not be reached immediately for comment, speculation points to health care as a likely topic of his RNC address.

Olens was at Romney’s side in Washington when the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Obama administration health care plan came down in June, which upheld key provisions of the new law. Olens joined in the chorus of Republican elected officials calling on Congress to strike down the law.

“Congress explicitly said this was not a tax,” Olens said in a written statement after the high court’s decision was announced. “I call on Congress to act swiftly to repeal the law and replace it with real reform that respects the Constitution as written.”

The convention will run Aug. 27-30.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens on Tuesday filed his office’s first civil suit under the state’s new sunshine laws against Cumming mayor Ford Gravitt and the city.

The suit stems from an April 17 incident in which Gravitt allegedly ordered a citizen to stop videotaping the City Council meeting in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act.

The new law, which went into effect also on April 17, specifically allows visual and sound recording by the public during an open meeting.

The AG’s complaint, filed in Forsyth County Superior Court, states that the mayor ordered Nydia Tisdale to stop recording the proceedings and for the police chief to remove her camera from the auditorium where the meeting was held. It adds that Gravitt ignored Tisdale’s opposition, citing the new law and requesting the mayor consult the city attorney.

“Every person in Georgia is charged with knowing the law,” the complaint states. “Mayor Gravitt and the officers and employees of the city of Cumming had an obligation to be aware of Georgia law at the time of their violations of its express terms. … Moreover, they were pointedly told about their legal obligations before violating them and proceeded anyway. The actions of the defendants were neither legally nor factually performed in objective good faith.”

City Administrator Gerald Blackburn said the city’s attorney advised officials not to comment on the lawsuit. Dana Miles, the city’s general counsel and founding partner of Miles Patterson Hansford Tallant, could not be reached for comment.

The complaint asks the court to impose the maximum civil penalties allowed under the new law, which would be $1,000 for the first violation and $2,500 for each subsequent violation from the April 17 meeting. The AG is also seeking an award of attorney’s fees.

Prior to the new law, the AG could bring only criminal charges against an alleged open government violator.

Those cases required prosecutors to prove that the violator “willfully and knowingly” violated the law. The new civil provision has a lower proof standard, making plaintiffs show only that the defendants were negligent.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said government defense lawyers, including those in his office, will be able to avoid “trial by ambush” now that the state’s new sunshine laws are in effect.

Changes to the state’s Open Records Act in House Bill 397, which was signed by the governor last month, still allow litigants to seek government records that may be used in a lawsuit. But they also require the litigant to notify government lawyers at the same time as making the request.

An earlier version of the bill prohibited litigants from using the Open Records Act as a way to circumvent discovery, but the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association successfully lobbied against the ban, arguing that it would infringe on a citizen’s right to access public documents.

GTLA, local government attorneys and Olens forged a compromise that they said prevented a litigant from using evidence obtained through an open records request without the prior knowledge of a government agency or its lawyers.

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Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens had his share of March madness.

During the last week of the month, he shepherded a slew of bills through the waning days of the 2012 legislative session with success and attended two of the three days of hearings on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)  before the U.S. Supreme Court.

While he didn’t actually present any of the health care arguments, he joined at least a dozen other state attorneys general to sit in solidarity—forming a figurative 10th man for their side.

“Georgia was an active plaintiff in the litigation, having worked on numerous versions of the various briefs and discussions on appellate strategy. It was important for as many plaintiff states as possible to be present during the hearings to demonstrate our resolve and the importance we placed on this appeal,” said Law Department spokeswoman Lauren Kane.

Not only was Olens present for the health care debates, he also personally appeared at Georgia’s Capitol on the last day of the session, known as Sine Die, and was seen conferring with sponsors of the legislation he was backing. Olens’ office estimates the AG incurred about $1,070 in travel expenses shuttling to and from Washington during the last week of March.

But the benefit was that “Sam’s attendance allowed him to assess first-hand how the arguments went and evaluate the court’s approach to the case,” Kane said.

The 26 plaintiff states have questioned the constitutionality of the 2010 federal law, specifically the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

“As Sam has said before, this landmark case has far reaching constitutional implications that will impact the individual liberty of every Georgian, hopefully confirming that Congress has limited enumerated powers,” Kane said. “Additionally, the outcome of the case will have enormous budgetary consequences for Georgia. If the law is upheld, Georgia will be burdened with a massive unfunded Medicaid mandate that we cannot afford.”

Assistant Georgia Attorney General DeBrae C. Kennedy announced this morning at a Georgia Public Defender Standards Council meeting that she will leave the state Law Department after March 30.

Kennedy, who recently worked on a settlement between the council and indigent defense advocates over the assignment of conflict attorneys in appellate cases, did not elaborate on her decision other than to say she had been on sick leave recently.

She did not say what her future plans are.

Georgia State Attorney General Sam Olens has joined with the U.S. Justice Department and other state attorney generals across the nation in a civil complaint against the country’s five largest mortgage servicers that seeks a share of a $25 billion settlement, Olens announced Monday.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington , names as defendants Bank of America, Corp., JP Morgan Chase & Col, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. . It alleges that the banks’ misconduct “resulted in the issuance of improper mortgages, premature and unauthorized foreclosures, violation of service members’ and other homeowners’ rights and protections, the use of false and deceptive affidavits and other documents, and the waste and abuse of taxpayer funds.”

The civil complaint is an effort by state attorneys general to secure for their states a portion of a $25 billion settlement that the banks reached with  the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last month.  The agreement ends multiple federal investigations involving allegations that the banks or their agents routinely signed foreclosure documents without knowing whether the information contained in the documents was correct.

For more information, see www.NationalForeclosureSettlement.com

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson has written a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. asking him to revisit a decision by the U.S. Justice Department to close the Atlanta office of its Antitrust Division.

In a letter dated Feb. 1, Johnson, a DeKalb County Democrat, said that the DOJ’s current plan to consolidate the  Antitrust Division’s offices in other cities – including Chicago, San Francisco and Washington – “wastes money.” He suggests, instead, that Antitrust staff and cases be consolidated  in  Atlanta “if the Department intends to maintain enforcement levels and save costs through consolidation.”

Johnson said that not only would Atlanta be a less expensive venue than other cities that will maintain antitrust offices, but it is “critical” because Atlanta is an international business hub—“the Capital of the South and the gateway to the world” with an antitrust bar “well-recognized by lawyers and jurists throughout the United States and the globe.”

Johnson dismissed the DOJ’s prediction that it would save $8  million from an anticipated 50 percent attrition rate for employees at offices slated to close who decline a transfer to one of the other cities.

“In the alternative, the Department may be left shorthanded – and have to wait for the end of hiring freezes to replace departing staff with new, untrained employees” in other cities that have higher pay scales than Atlanta, Johnson wrote.

“Not only will 26 employees in the Atlanta Office alone, lose their jobs if they are not able to transfer, but the reorganization as proposed will mean that the entire southern half of the United States will have no criminal antitrust enforcers who are familiar with these geographic regions, markets, businesses, the Courts and antitrust bar,” he wrote. “The Department would likely see diminished deterrence as a result and its actions would give credence to the old adage that out of sight means out of mind.”

A PDF of Rep. Johnson’s letter is viewable here.

AG Sam Olens was offered a free ride by a tobacco lobbyist last November. And he took it.

According to WXIA’s Doug Richards, who first reported on the trip in December of 2011, Olens did nothing illegal by accepting the private plane mode of transportation to a gathering of Republican attorneys general in Palm Beach, Fla., on November 13, 2011. The trip was reported by Altria on their lobbying expenses disclosure form, as is required by all companies lobbying in Georgia.

The Daily Report contacted the AG’s office for a comment about the free flight. Olens’ communications officer, Lauren Kane, emailed a statement that said:

For several weeks prior to the RAGA meeting (Republican Attorneys General Association), Sam had been having conversations with several executives at Altria about the upcoming arbitration between tobacco companies and the states in which the tobacco companies are seeking to reduce payments to the states. We’re vigorously fighting them. At that time, the companies had not decided which states to challenge, and Sam hoped to convince them not to challenge Georgia.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens has announced on his website that four men have been indicted in an alleged illegal tobacco trafficking ring formed to dodge paying taxes.

The men – one in Hall County and three in Cobb County – were charged with racketeering and possession of cigarettes with counterfeit stamps. The indictments are part of a three year investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Atlanta Field Division, the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, the Georgia Department of Revenue, the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office and the Lawrenceville Police Department and the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department, according to Olens announcement.

Assistant Attorney General Greg Lohmeier is prosecuting the case on behalf of the state.

Any relief for distressed mortgage holders must also consider the majority of Americans who make their payments on time, said John Stumpf, chairman, president and CEO of Wells Fargo.

Stumpf, who spoke at an Atlanta Press Club Newsmaker luncheon today at the Commerce Club, used big numbers to draw this picture: “There are 70 million homes in America. Fifty million have a mortgage. The average mortgage is $200,000 and that’s $10 trillion of debt. Of those 50 million mortgage customers, five million are past due and 45 million are current.”

“Some of those 45 million are over loan to value,” he added, meaning the  home owners continue to make on-time mortgage payments on homes that are worth less than the mortgage debt.

 The issue is fairness, Stumpf said. “So whatever we do for the five million, let’s make sure we have a balance, and we don’t punish the 65 million.”

Wells Fargo and other large banks have been in talks with a coalition of state attorneys general, trying to reach an agreement on a plan that would grant relief to underwater mortgage holders. In return, it’s been reported that the banks want protection from lawsuits related to mistakes in issuing mortgages, servicing them or in foreclosures, including so-called robo-signing of documents.

Stumpf declined to discuss specifics of the talks other than to acknowledge they are taking place.

He expressed support for expanded eligibility for the Home Affordable Refinance Program, which President Obama is expected to discuss today in Las Vegas. HARP helps homeowners with little or no equity in their homes refinance. The program is available only for federally guaranteed mortgage holders who are current on payments. When the program was started two years ago, the White House expected at least four million homeowners to take advantage of it, according to the Associated Press, which has reported that, to date, only 894,000 have used it.

Stumpf also voiced support for an industry initiative that would place renters in the more than 1.3 million homes that he said enter foreclosure each year. “When a foreclosed property goes on the market, it usually has been in foreclosure about 16 months, and typically the deferred maintenance on those properties is quite significant,” and negatively affects resales of other homes in the neighborhood, Stumpf said. Aggressive rental of those properties “would help take distressed inventory off the market and allow for normal resale of homes.”